PIL.OT / DEVELOPMENT
PIL.OTv0.62.2
Ettore Asoni analyses the incorporation of externalised border and migration control into the Common European Asylum System (CEAS). The article treats Italy’s extraterritorial detention policy in Albania and the proposal for return hubs in third countries as concrete signs of this shift.
The analysis frames the issue as a conflict between competing conceptions of territory within the CEAS legal framework. It concludes that externalisation creates instability and internal contradictions in the territorial order underpinning both the CEAS and the EU.
The legal tensions created by the EU’s externalization of migration and border control to third countries, including the incorporation of those strategies into the Common European Asylum System and their compatibility with its traditional territorial architecture
The article treats the relocation of migration and border control to third countries not merely as a policy choice, but as a legal problem affecting the territorial order on which the CEAS is built. It explains why integrating externalisation into that system can produce internal contradictions in its territorial structure.
Geoforum · 2026
DOI 10.1016/j.geoforum.2026.104844