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I wanted to introduce in Japanese the issue of human rights violations in EU immigration control, typified by "pushback." As far as I know, there are very few articles in Japanese that summarize the issue of human rights violations in EU immigration control. Therefore, although I usually write papers in English, this time I wrote in Japanese in order to contribute to disseminating information in Japan.
The EU tends to be seen as a good entity and a model, but if we look at immigration control, we see that human rights violations are being ignored. Therefore, by first introducing the reality of "pushback" in Japanese and then critically examining it, we hope to provide an opportunity to reconsider the image of the EU in Japan.

Apart from refugees from Ukraine currently taking refuge in Poland and other countries, most people seeking asylum come from North African countries and Syria. For these people, the focus is on "how to prevent them from entering the EU" or "how to prevent them from applying for refugee status." If any acts that violate the human rights of refugees occur after they enter an EU member state, this will be a violation of EU law and the European Convention on Human Rights. Therefore, the EU and EU member states are thinking about how to prevent them from entering the EU in the first place.
For example, the EU-Turkey Declaration agreed upon by the EU and Turkey in March 2016 reduces the number of nominal asylum applicants by first deporting people who enter Greece irregularly to Turkey.
However, the number of asylum seekers moving into the EU has been increasing in recent years, and coupled with the influx of refugees from Ukraine, temporary accommodation facilities in the Netherlands and Belgium are overcrowded, forcing many people to live on the streets.

I feel that there is a political will to exclude refugees, and that the "humanitarianism" that European countries have advocated up until now is beginning to "fall apart." This is a problem.
Currently, people heading to Europe face two hurdles. First, there is the hurdle of leaving their own country. For example, when leaving Libya, the EU is paying organizations such as the Libyan coast guard to stop them from leaving the country by various means. Italy and the EU jointly send boat location information to Libya, and the coast guard stops the boat at sea based on that information. People who are brought back to Libya in this way often end up being abused or becoming victims of human trafficking. This is the first hurdle, and it is called "pullback."

The review of the Dublin Regulation is being discussed, but it is not going well. The current structure is convenient in a sense for landlocked countries far from the EU's outer borders. It has a "double outsourcing" structure, so to speak. In other words, the inner countries "outsource" immigration control to the outer border countries, and the outer border countries "outsource" immigration control to the Middle Eastern and African countries that are producing refugees, so as to prevent refugees from coming. This "double outsourcing" structure is the current situation where the review is not progressing smoothly.

The influx of large numbers of people seen in 2015 is often referred to as the "European refugee crisis," but this situation has been ongoing since before, and I believe that researchers are being asked to sort out these structural problems and reweave the image of the EU. Especially in Japanese-speaking environments, the structural problems of the EU surrounding refugees have hardly been discussed. It has been said that while there are certainly human rights issues, it is the fault of the member states, not the EU, and that the EU is actually working to solve the problems. However, when we look at the structural problems mentioned earlier, it is because of the existence of the EU that the human rights of refugees are being neglected, and I believe that this is something that must be addressed in international organization research and EU research.

Although I regularly conduct research on international organizations and the nature of inter-organizational relationships, my starting point is always the individual. International organizations often play a crucial role in international refugee protection, but I think we need to reconsider what role individuals play in that context and think about ways to reimagine refugee protection with individuals at the center. The word "refugee" contains the character "min" (people), but refugee research to date has focused primarily on the role of nations and international organizations, and has not necessarily looked at individuals. How will the position and perspective of each migrant who has had to move from their original home for some reason be reflected in international policies, or not? If not, why? I think we need to think about these things.

Generally, there is a premise that international organizations are created by nations. If one stops thinking at that point, then international organizations are merely tools of nations, and if some injustice occurs, it is not the international organizations that are at fault, but the nations that created and use them.
However, in reality, the agreements and activities of international organizations can sometimes be the source of human rights violations. The reality is that refugees are deprived of their freedom and even their lives, and their human rights are being violated. If this is the case, I believe that what is needed now is to re-examine the assumption that international organizations are fundamentally good and to develop a critical theory of international organizations.
The term "human rights" is important, and by using this term to talk about international organizations, we can focus on the micro-individuals whose fates are at the mercy of others and who raise objections to this. In that sense, if there is such a thing as a critical theory of international organizations, I believe that its focus must be on the individual.

Yes. As for my long-term vision, as I mentioned earlier, I would like to aim to build a "critical theory of international organizations." This is a cognitive framework that questions the common belief that "international organizations are somehow righteous and good," and exposes the bad parts of international organizations while acknowledging their good parts. I will continue to work on refugee research as an important aspect of looking at the relationship between international organizations and individuals, and I would be happy to create a theory of international organizations that can sympathize with individuals who find themselves in vulnerable positions around the world, taking into account, for example, the counter-terrorism research that I am currently conducting in parallel.