Legal understandings of asylum vary and remain to a great extent ambiguous. This is because asylum takes different legal forms in different legal dimensions: general international law, international human rights law, EU law, and constitutional law. All the above-mentioned dimensions are strictly linked and combined. Yet the ways in which asylum has been addressed, especially in the doctrine, often overlook this complexity. This article is aimed at assessing the modern legal approaches to the institution of asylum in international, European, and domestic legal orders, with reference to the positions taken by the late Janusz Symonides and in this way commemorating his recent passing away.

This paper examines migratory movements into Poland with a special emphasis on refugee mobility. In the past twenty years, almost 90 000 Chechen refugees have come to Poland, as it was the first safe country they reached. According to the Office for Foreigners data they constituted approximately 90 per cent of applicants for refugee status, 38 per cent of persons granted refugee status, 90 per cent of persons granted ‘tolerated status’ and 93 per cent of persons granted ‘subsidiary protection status’. However, a peculiarity of the Polish situation, confirmed by official statistics and research, is that ref-ugees treat Poland mainly as a transit country. The author focuses on the issue of integrating Chechen refugee children into the Polish education system, as well as Chechen children granted international protection or waiting to be granted such protection. The results of the study suggest that Polish immi-gration policy has no impact on the choice of destination of the refugees that were interviewed. None of the interviewees wanted to return to Chechnya, nor did they perceive Poland as a destination country. Children with refugee status, which enables them to stay legally in the Schengen area, ‘disappear’ not only from the Polish educational system but from Poland as a whole as well. This phenomenon hampers the possibility of achieving educational success when working with foreign children, and it challenges the immense efforts by Polish institutions to integrate refugee children into the school and the local community. Both official statistical data and research results were used in this paper.

While the number of forced migrants moving out of conflict-ridden or otherwise troubled regions into rela-tively stable and safe parts of the world is higher than ever, the countries of destination are increasingly trying to prevent migrants from reaching their territories. Given the scale of forced displacement and current trends of tightening immigration policies, it should be expected that tragedies at the borders, similar to that recently witnessed in Europe, will become the norm rather than the exception and that new discourses and practices will continue to emerge, transforming territorial borders in various parts of the world into highly conflictual and politicised ‘borderspaces’. This article is a contribution to the understanding of borders through a case study of the recent policy of ‘closed doors’ that Poland has adopted towards Russia’s North Caucasus asylum seekers at the country’s eastern border with Belarus, preventing them from entering the territory and claiming protection. It demonstrates that, through the process of ‘bordering’, power is no longer exercised only by the border guards at the crossing point in Terespol from where asylum seekers are being returned and that it is increasingly to be found in social practices that occur on both sides of the border, away from the clearance points. The article examines the various practices of resistance undertaken by the asylum seekers and other actors on several different levels in response to the changed reality at the border. It also analyses the meanings and discourses developed by Polish state actors in order to legitimise restrictive migration policies.

In February 2022, Russian troops invaded Ukraine, continuing a war that lasted since 2014. This turn of events led to massive migration of Ukrainian refugees to Poland, during which the country received approx. 2 million new inhabitants. The rapid migrational process led to attitudinal changes in the host country's population. This article reviews survey studies conducted at the Center for Research on Prejudice at the University of Warsaw (cross-sectional and longitudinal) assessing the attitudes of Poles toward Ukrainians. According to our data, the attitudes of Poles toward Ukraine improved after the 2022 Russian invasion (compared to 2021), and our longitudinal studies confirmed that this change was relatively long-lasting – the attitudes did not deteriorate substantially. A study looking at attitudes toward war refugees from Ukraine and refugees from other countries found that Poles showed significantly higher acceptance of Ukrainian refugees than those from other countries, which could be largely attributed to greater contact with Ukrainians. Furthermore, Poles expressed relatively high acceptance of state support for healthcare and education of Ukrainian refugees, whereas the acceptance of direct financial support and housing was relatively lower.

In this paper we review the significant political events and economic forces shaping contemporary mi-gration within and into Europe. Various data sources are deployed to chronicle five phases of migration affecting the continent over the period 1945–2015: immediate postwar migrations of resettlement, the mass migration of ‘guestworkers’, the phase of economic restructuring and family reunion, asylum-seek-ing and irregular migration, and the more diverse dynamics unfolding in an enlarged European Union post-2004, not forgetting the spatially variable impact of the 2008 economic crisis. In recent years, in a scenario of rising migration globally, there has been an increase in intra-European migration com-pared to immigration from outside the continent. However, this may prove to be temporary given the convergence of economic indicators between ‘East’ and ‘West’ within the EU and the European Eco-nomic Area, and that ongoing population pressures from the global South, especially Africa, may inten-sify. Managing these pressures will be a major challenge from the perspective of a demographically shrinking Europe.

On 24 February 2022 an unprovoked Russia attacked Ukraine, causing a mass movement of displaced persons fleeing Ukraine and in need of international protection. On 4 March 2022, the European Council established the existence of a mass influx of displaced persons, and with that for the first time in the history activated Directive 2001/55/EC, providing quick and effective assistance to people fleeing the war. This action has become an exception in the treatment of forcibly displaced persons arriving at the European Union (EU) borders. The main objective of this study is to explore the complementary position that temporary protection occupies within the Common European Asylum System (CEAS), where it serves not only as a tool to provide protection to persons forcefully displaced en masse, but also to ease the pressure on national asylum systems. What makes the presented research even more interesting is the fact that although temporary protection in the EU had been regulated (at least in theory) for over twenty years, it is still highly politicized and dependent on the will of European leaders. This article combines theoretical considerations (analysis of international law and European law) with a case study of actions taken (and not taken) by the EU during the 2022 migratory pressures.

The paper outlines the possible repercussions of the strong presence of Islamic representatives in Europe at the beginning of the 21st century. The percentage of Muslims in Europe increased from 2% in 1950 to 6% in 2020. The reception of the new wave of Muslim migration to the Old Continent leads to predictable consequences. Two scenarios can be considered. One of them is the growing perception of the threat from the increasing Muslim population in Europe. Another possible solution is their gradual integration. For both scenarios, clear premises based on known facts, socio-political decisions, ratified agreements and declarations of decision makers are presented. Discussions have been held on the emerging stereotypes that indicate an aversion to the growing presence of Islam on the Old Continent. Practices implemented to integrate the Muslim community have also been presented.

This paper investigates the situation of Galician refugees in the Habsburg Empire during the last year of the First World War. The majority of the refugees returned home following the eastward movement of the frontline in 1915 (i.e. after the Gorlice‑Tarnów campaign). However, many others stayed deep within the Austro‑Hungarian Empire till the end of the war. According to the official reports of the Ministry of the Interior, there were still 90 thousand refugees (25% Poles, 28% Jews, and 46% Ukrainians, then known as Ruthenians) receiving social benefits from the state in the Austrian part of the Empire on 1st September 1918. Moreover, one can add countless refugees who stayed in the interior of the Empire at their own expense. The situation became even more complicated when the feelings of enmity on the part of the local inhabitants escalated. Pressed by society, the local authorities started expelling the refugees. As a consequence, some of them returned home, while others still stayed in exile in search of a better life. What is even more interesting is that some of them (mostly Jews) emphasised the lack of a bond with the new Polish state born in November 1918.

States and individuals are the essential building blocks of international law. Normally, their identity seems to be solidly established. However, modern international law is widely permeated by the notion of freedom from natural or societal constraints. This notion, embodied for individuals in the concept of human rights, has enabled human beings to overcome most of the traditional ties of dependency and being subjected to dominant social powers. Beyond that, even the natural specificity of a human as determined by birth and gender is being widely challenged. The law has made far-going concessions to this pressure. The right to leave one’s own country, including renouncing one’s original nationality, epitomizes the struggle for individual freedom. On the other hand, States generally do not act as oppressive powers but provide comprehensive protection to their nationals. Stateless persons live in a status of precarious insecurity. All efforts should be supported which are aimed at doing away with statelessness or non-recognition as a human person through the refusal to issue identity documents.

Disputes about the collective identity of States also contain two different aspects. On the one hand, disin tegrative tendencies manifest themselves through demands for separate statehood by min ority groups. Such secession movements, as currently reflected above all in the Spanish provin ce of Catalonia, have no basis in in ternational law except for situations where a group suffers grave structural discrimin ation (remedial secession). As the common homeland of its citizens, every State also has the right to take care of its sociological identity. Many controversies focus on the distin ction between citizens and aliens. This distin ction is well rooted in domestic and in ternational law. Changes in that regard cannot be made lightly. At the universal level, international law has not given birth to a right to be granted asylum. At the regional level, the European Union has put in to force an extremely generous system that provides a right of asylum not only to persons persecuted in dividually, but also affords “subsidiary protection” to persons in danger of bein g harmed by military hostilities. It is open to doubt whether the EU in stitutions have the competence to assign quotas of refugees to in dividual Member States. The relevant judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union of 6 September 2017 was hasty and avoided the core issue: the compatibility of such decisions with the guarantee of national identity established under Article 4(2) of the EU Treaty.

The article explores war as a perplexing social phenomenon, one that often appears more enticing to mankind than peace despite the numerous advantages attributed to the latter, as exemplified in the writings of Hesiod. The origins of war remain somewhat enigmatic, but evidence of its existence can be traced back to Paleo-lithic settlements and ancient texts like the Epic of Gilgamesh. After the abandonment of divine laws, we find ourselves in a world see-mingly devoid of rules, witnessing a growing state of anarchy in in-ternational relations, a trend that has intensified since the early 21st century, culminating in Putin’s 2022 attack on Ukraine. Some phi-losophers, such as Umberto Eco, argue that humanity has entered a new era akin to the “Middle Ages” characterized by the resur-gence of private violence and the proliferation of religious and civil wars. Former ceasefires have given way to “cold wars” which, re-grettably, still have the propensity to escalate into “hot wars” as seen in the full-scale war in Ukraine. Furthermore, the current interna-tional landscape is overshadowed by the specter of nuclear deter-rence, where a precarious balance of fear prevails. Additionally, assumptions about the brevity of contemporary wars and the immi-nent return of refugees, which were advocated until very recently, now face reconsideration.

The purpose of this article is to present and count the North Korean population living in Beijing. The North Korean people in Beijing do not constitute a united community but rather citizens from the same country who are in transit in the Chinese capital. The spatial dimensions of residence of North Koreans in Beijing and the issue of North Korean refugees based in the Chinese capital are emphasized in this paper.