This special issue
deals with temporalities in migration law with particular emphasis on the
European context. At the crossroads of several legal fields, including public
law, human rights law, EU law and public international law, the topic is
cutting-edge in migration law. The articles collected were originally presented
at a conference organized at Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam in June 2023 and
another organized at Uppsala University in September 2024, both dealing with
time and temporalities in migration law from a variety of perspectives. The aim
of these conferences was to further develop the study of the roles of time in
European migration law by unpacking the diversity of ways in which time works
as an instrument of migration control in Europe. While temporal governance is
far from limited to the European context – the US ‘remain in Mexico’ policy7
and the Australian temporary protection visa8 being only two examples – Europe
is an interesting site of analysis. It is a forerunner in creating ‘innovative’
migration control policies9; it combines opposites, such as unhindered
international movement within Europe for some, e.g., European citizens,
alongside fierce immobility and stuckedness for others; it is characterized by
a multilevel interplay marking the complexities of interaction between a
multitude of different legal regimes and jurisdictions – domestic, EU and
international (including the ECHR) – with strong human rights institutions and
frameworks. This combination makes Europe a privileged site of inquiry. Drawing
on this ‘forerunner quality’ and characterizing elements, this Introduction
poses the question whether it is possible to distinguish a form of time one
could call ‘European time’ to describe a specifically European approach to
implementing temporal governance techniques in the field of migration.