The session deals with current challenges to the right to political asylum in the European Union, both from within and beyond its borders. Exiled dissidents who have taken refuge in the EU are threatened with different tactics of transnational repression. Illiberal regimes use digital surveillance, online attacks as well as extradition requests and Interpol red notices to target political emigrants outside their territory. But the EU itself also exercises extraterritorial power against asylum seekers: migrants are subject to social media monitoring, movement tracking and other forms of border management before they even enter European territory. And finally, internal dissenters lack political protection too, as illustrated by the cases of whistleblowers and separatist movements. From different angles, the panel highlights the pressures on fundamental human rights in the 21st Century, resulting from the impacts of globalization and digitalization.

• How is the right to political asylum in the EU currently challenged and undermined?
• What role do digital technologies play in threats against the human rights of political refugees?
• What are the legal obligations of governments in the EU to protect political refugees on their territory?
• How to protect and strengthen asylum seekers against digitally enabled threats to their rights?