This chapter examines the colonial legacies in EU migration and asylum law, exploring the 2015 and 2022 refugee ‘crises’, the latter in the context of the Russo-Ukrainian war and the former in the context of conflicts in the Middle East and Africa. Using a postcolonial approach, the chapter shows how EU legal arrangements reproduce a colonial ‘sedentary bias’ in relation to people from former colonies and related assumptions of ‘bogus’ refugees. It also argues that these colonial legacies have been carried forward by the differential scheme emerging from the two ‘crises’, which has been shaped by a racialized distinction between regular and irregular migration.

In the context of the new Arctic policies of the EU, it is of importance to bring to the fore elements of the long-standing histories that connect the Arctic and Europe, as those histories may help us to understand challenges of today. With that background, the aim of this chapter is to shed further light on the term ‘Eurarctic’, primarily being limited, however, to a focus on the colonial history of Greenland as well as present EU– Greenland relations. The history of the Nordic/Arctic to which the history of Greenland is anchored, is long, complex, and at times controversial, so the intention is to modestly take a bird’s-eye view and focus on some of the most significant aspects.

Brexit was a great revealer in many respects. In relation to Northern Ireland, it revealed the almost invisible role that joint EU membership had played in providing a scaffold for the peace process in the province and in resolving a postcolonial conflict with cross-border dimensions. In addition to EU political support and in facilitating good relations between Ireland and the UK, joint membership of the single market and customs union, along with the Common Travel Area between the two jurisdictions, reduced the practical and symbolic effect of the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. It was thus the functional effects of single market law which provided the context within which a postcolonial conflict with cross-border dimensions could be managed. Brexit, particularly of the ‘hard’ variety, threatened to reintroduce this border, undermining a key element of the peace process. The Ireland/Northern Ireland Protocol or Windsor Framework is an imperfect substitute which results in an extremely complex legal landscape of multiple interacting sources of law: a form of legal pluralism or even legal entanglement.

Guided by the question of why and how the Mediterranean Sea, the bond between Europe and its African empires, became a frontier, this chapter explores the formation of two separate migration regimes in Europe. One that is liberal for white migration of the European Communities; the other that is (unevenly) closed and concerns racialized migration of the post-imperial communities. Analysing a period from the 1940s to the late 1970s, this chapter uses archival material from national and European bureaucracies to establish the formation of differentiated mobility and social security regimes by means of international and EEC/EC law. The chapter shows how this process has happened gradually. European law initially recognized the coexistence of two ‘communities’ (one European, one postcolonial), within which the rules of free movement of workers and access to social rights for foreigners from postcolonial and European communities were (formally) equal. Later, national and European bureaucracies gradually established a double standard along racial lines, which became the norm in the 1970s. In so doing, European law has contributed to closing access to the wealth accumulated in the former colonial mainland countries to the racialized populations of the former colonies.

This chapter outlines the colonial history of the CFA franc, and how to transition to a new currency, the eco, in West Africa. The CFA franc currently circulates in fourteen African countries divided into two monetary zones in West and Central Africa and this chapter starts by explaining the role currently played by the European Union institutions and the French Treasury in the currency’s governance in West Africa. The chapter goes on to discuss the different positions within the debate about how to transition to the eco and ends by outlining the most appealing roadmap for currency reform and monetary sovereignty in the West African region.

The external dimension of the EU migration policy relies to a large extent on its development policy to foster ‘mutually beneficial partnerships’ between the EU and non-EU states. While political conditionality remains a fundamental axis of the EU’s external relations, a curious ‘twist’ of events has led to the emergence of ‘migration-based’ conditionality, especially in the aftermath of the 2015–2016 ‘migration crisis’. Conditionality can be broadly defined as the EU’s leverage of different instruments to lead non-EU states to comply with certain norms. In the context of the EU development policy, conditionality traditionally relates to human rights, democracy, and good governance. In the context of migration, however, these norms are mostly connected with the readmission of nationals. While migration-based conditionality might appear as a deviation from a more ‘righteous’ form of conditionality, this contribution argues that this is incorrect. Through a critical review of the EU development policy going back to its colonial roots, this chapter intends to show that migration-based conditionality stems from political conditionality and not that it strays from it. In doing so, it seeks to highlight how migration-based conditionality reflects a hierarchical access to mobility still rooted in colonial racism.

The Bresciani case is one of a group of early cases in which the legal effect of Community agreements, and their nature as a source of law, was considered. This chapter explores the way in which the specific context of the Bresciani case, the trade relations established by the Yaoundé Conventions between the Community and some of its former colonies, influenced the Court’s presentation of direct effect in Bresciani itself and raised questions about the relationship between direct effect and the reciprocal (or non-reciprocal) nature of a trade agreement, in particular those founded on relationships of integration with the EU. The type of non-reciprocity found in the Yaoundé Conventions, established in Bresciani to be compatible with direct effect, is no longer a feature of EU trade agreements, but the EU-centricity of Yaoundé is a continuing characteristic of agreements based on integration with the EU model. The postcolonial context specific to Yaoundé becomes part of the broader legal context of these integration-led agreements, helping to clarify the part played by reciprocity in interpreting the EU’s international relationships.

This chapter explores the interconnections between European colonialism and European integration, in particular in the creation of the single market. It examines the emergence of regional (EU) social and labour law against the backdrop of decolonization, arguing that the EU market integration project, and the ability to embed that market in the ‘social’, owe much to the ‘racial capitalism’ of European colonial dominance over the territory and resources of other regions. Exploring the temporal and the spatial dimensions of EU integration, a key argument of the chapter is that there has been no clean break between the colonial past of the constituent Member States of the EU, and the neocolonial present of the European project. This ongoing legacy can be seen in the ways in which the development of the EU’s social dimension, or ‘social regionalism’, influences and constrains the policy space available for another regionalism project, the African Union, to develop its own version of social regionalism.

This chapter traces the historical trajectory of Algeria’s relationship with the EU from the post-Second World War period and Algerian independence, to the present. It examines key agreements and legal frameworks, shedding light on how the colonial history produced complexities in defining Algeria’s status in relation to European integration. The narrative extends to explore broader geopolitical initiatives such as the Euro–Mediterranean Cooperative Proposal, the Union for the Mediterranean, and the European Neighbourhood Policy, and assesses the effectiveness of these policies in addressing issues like migration, security, and border control. The study highlights the evolving nature of the Euro–Algerian relationship, emphasizing its multifaceted character beyond economic interests. In navigating this relationship, the analysis underscores the importance of a nuanced approach, considering the diverse interests and challenges faced by both Algeria and the European Union in the context of Euro– Mediterranean relations.

‘Decolonization’ of research and teaching in EU law constitutes a starting point for examinations of EU law which can open up the world of European legal integration to a new generation of Black scholars and audiences, both across Europe and beyond. In this contribution I suggest what this starting point could look like – what happens when we take colonialism as the starting point for our interaction with EU law? How does a decolonial approach amend the purpose, principles and practice that inform our research and teaching in EU law today? I propose that relevant purposes include excavation, correction, dissemination and diversification. The principles that underlie this purpose include pro-democracy, intentionality and internationality while the practice of decolonizing research and teaching in EU law would focus on identifying omission, using empirical study to create new understanding of systems and working in collaboration with Black scholars.

This chapter examines the treatment of organized migration in France following the signing of the Treaty of Rome. In the same way that workers of Algerian origin were denied the right to free movement as workers, workers from the former colonies of the French imperial space were subjected to treatment reflecting their former status as indigenous workers. One illustration is the case of the Chibani, a group of older North African workers hired by the thousands by the French national railway company (SNCF) in the three decades following the Second World War. Throughout their careers, these workers had an insecure status under which they were not entitled to the same treatment as their French counterparts. Key to their discriminatory treatment was the so-called nationality clause, designed to establish a national preference. By making workers’ enjoyment of basic social rights dependent on their nationality, this discriminatory system put in place by the SNCF with the active support of the French and Moroccan governments persisted even as the European Convention on Human Rights, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU, and the Race Equality Directive entered into force in France.