Producing Precariousness: ‘Safety Elsewhere’ and the Removal of International Protection Status under EU Law

This article examines recent trends in EU refugee law. It argues that within the EU there is a complex and technical set of rules and procedures that maintain the refugee in a position where protection can be easily denied or revoked. Engaging with the work of Judith Butler, I argue that this constant threat of removal exists on a ‘continuum of precariousness’. Mapping a number of EU legal practices, I argue that the EU has expanded this precariousness in order to manage the movement of people, transforming laws, which were ostensibly for the protection of persecuted people, into a form of post hoc immigration control. I track how this process is deeply rooted in bureaucratic practices, which construct place, space and attachment through the law