Cois Coiribe‘s ‘Day in the Life’ series showcases the diverse workings of our research and teaching life at University of Galway. We aim to spotlight researchers, academics, and students, sharing their experiences, challenges, and exciting discoveries!
This ‘Day in the Life’ feature focuses on Dr Ciara Smyth, Assistant Professor in the School of Law and Irish Centre for Human Rights, College of Business, Public Policy and Law, University of Galway.
My name is Ciara. I am a lecturer in the School of Law and Irish Centre for Human Rights (ICHR) at University of Galway and programme director of the Master of Laws (LL.M) in International Migration and Refugee Law at the ICHR. I teach a variety of subjects at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, all related to international law. I also supervise a number of PhD students. My own research is in the field of refugee and immigration law at the international, EU, and domestic levels. I have been involved in reform of the Irish asylum process for many years and actively participate in several civil society organisations.
My day usually starts with a swim in the sea, which is a very short one if it is wintertime! I have been swimming with the same group of friends for years, and it is an invigorating (and breathless!) start to the day. Then I get warm with a cup of coffee.
As I said previously, my research is in the field of refugee and immigration law. Currently, I am writing an article on Ireland’s decision to opt into the new EU Pact on Migration and Asylum. Ireland has recently experienced a significant increase in asylum seekers and is hosting a substantial number of Ukrainians. Ireland is also in the middle of a homelessness crisis and is contending with the rise of populist anti-immigrant sentiment and the far right. The new EU pact purports to clamp down on irregular migration, while increasing the speed of case-processing and decreasing numbers, and so this is understandably attractive to Ireland. However, the pact is also problematic from a protection and human rights perspective, and its ability to deliver on its aims is questionable.
In fact, Ireland’s opting into the pact is a significant policy change since, until now, Ireland has strategically opted into some EU asylum measures and not others. The rationale for this has been the existence of the Common Travel Area with the UK and the need to align Irish asylum policy with that of Britain. Post Brexit, that rationale has lost much of its logic, and different political allegiances prevail. So, it is a good moment to reflect on the causes and consequences of Ireland’s traditional à la carte approach to EU asylum law and policy, as well as the repercussions of this legacy for Ireland’s fuller engagement with the new EU pact.
When I completed my LL.M in human rights many years ago, I worked with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Dublin. This was at a time when Ireland was pivoting from being a country of net emigration to one of net immigration, and it was emerging as an asylum destination. The asylum bodies, which make decisions on people’s status, were newly formed, and I worked in a capacity-building role with decision makers and judges on how to determine refugee status.
The issue of unaccompanied minors, and how to process their cases, was a particular challenge. For example, how do you interview and evaluate the testimony of a 10-year-old child? I subsequently did my PhD at the Institute of Immigration Law in Leiden University on the EU asylum system and its compliance with the rights of the child. I still write about asylum-seeking children, but my research now extends into other areas, such as immigration detention, family reunification, EU free movement, and the Irish asylum system.
Yes, there are opportunities for me to work with other researchers. For example, I am the Irish representative on the Odysseus Network – an academic network that collaborates on legal studies on immigration and asylum in Europe. However, as someone whose scholarship is largely doctrinal (in other words, oriented towards establishing a more complete understanding of the conceptual bases of legal principles) most of my research is single authored.
As mentioned earlier, I work closely with various civil society organisations. I was previously the chair of the board of the Irish Refugee Council, and I am currently on the board of the Immigrant Council of Ireland. Therefore, I collaborate with civil society partners, bringing my research insights into those roles, and also taking the learnings from those roles back into the classroom and into my research.
I teach public international law and international human rights at the undergraduate level, and international refugee law and EU asylum law at the postgraduate level. All these modules are relevant to my research field, and I use my research to bring real-world situations and challenges into the classroom. In fact, last year as part of the Public International Law module, I piloted an interactive oral as a method of authentic assessment. This involved conducting an oral with each student that replicated a work-place dialogue, in which the student was asked to apply relevant principles of public international law to a contemporary problem in international relations.
In 2019, I established the LL.M in International Migration and Refugee Law and Policy at the ICHR – the first programme of its kind in Ireland. I use my research and broader disciplinary knowledge to work with students to identify research gaps, which they can then explore in a dissertation, an advocacy document, a podcast, or a blog. I learn a lot from the students too. For example, a number of PhD students at ICHR are using coloniality as a theoretical framework in their research. Inspired by them, I have set about decolonising the curriculum in my own subjects.
A huge challenge of research in the field of EU asylum law is the complexity of the area combined with the pace of legislative change and jurisprudential development. For example, the new EU Pact that I mentioned earlier, which comprises eight pieces of legislation, will supersede the current law in two years’ time. But the current law itself superseded an earlier package. Cutting across all versions of the legislation is the case-law of the Court of Justice of the EU, the national courts of EU member States, and the European Court of Human Rights. Also, what member states actually do in their policy and practice may not entirely comply with EU law. Keeping on top of these developments, and making an original contribution in research terms, can be quite a challenge, as is carving out the time for research.
Migration and refugee law and policy is a huge growth area as European States compete to attract immigrants in the face of demographic decline, an aging workforce, and labour shortages. Those same States are also confronted with forced migration due to political instability, conflict, human rights violations, and climate change. It is an area crying out for research as States manoeuvre between the need for immigrants, populism and human rights compliance. A number of graduates of the LL.M programme have gone on to do PhD research on cutting edge themes: collective expulsions in Europe; the use of free-movement agreements in East Africa to respond to climate change; non-entrée policies at the US-Mexican border; and human rights violations against migrants in the Aegean.
My advice to aspiring researchers is to get some professional experience before embarking on a Masters. I spent time in France and Cambodia in between my LL.B and LL.M and felt that this experience contributed hugely to my enjoyment of the Masters. A Masters can also help to identify an area suitable for PhD research, and to explore the funding landscape. The ICHR is an ideal place to undertake a Masters, and to conduct postgraduate research in migration and refugee law, not only because of the expertise of the staff but because it has fostered a really dynamic and supportive postgraduate culture.
