In a time of accelerating legal and political change, migration governance in Europe is increasingly shaped by the language and tools of security, deterrence and control. While these developments are not new, recent EU legislative reforms, most notably the Pact on Migration and Asylum and the newly adopted Return Regulation, consolidate and formalize an evolving trajectory in which coercive measures and restricted safeguards play a central role in the management of migration.
Across Europe and within the Nordic countries, this shift is not only visible in political discourse but increasingly embedded in law and legal practice. It can be seen in the persistence of pushbacks and other coercive practices at Europe's borders, in the normalization of detention and movement restrictions, in the expansion of criminal law as a tool of migration management, and in the restructuring of asylum procedures towards speed and efficiency. These developments raise fundamental rule of law questions concerning the continued effectiveness of legal safeguards, accountability, and the limits of state power in the exercise of migration control.
The Nordic Rule of Law Forum 2026 brings together judges, practitioners, academics and oversight bodies to examine how these developments are reshaping the legal landscape in Europe and the Nordic countries. The Forum explores whether legal systems increasingly structured around speed, control and deterrence can remain meaningfully constrained by rule of law principles, and what role the legal profession plays in safeguarding those principles in practice.
Further details on the conference programme and sessions can be found below.
