Legislative and Judicial Strategies in Danish Law

Abstract

Whereas Danish legislation traditionally accommodated international human rights obligations, as demonstrated by the 1992 incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights, the past two decades have seen a significant counter-reaction. The changing approach has become manifest in connection with numerous restrictions of immigration and asylum policy in which international obligations were perceived as a constraint to domestic lawmaking. In order to manage the limits of international law, the Danish legislature has developed various strategies with a view to reconciling increasingly restrictive measures with human rights obligations. As compatibility became more difficult, new regulatory strategies were introduced along with rhetoric openly challenging international obligations, based on more unilateral or nationalist policy framing in light of the 2015 asylum crisis. The article will provide a typology of these strategies and analyse them in the context of judicial responses at domestic and international levels.