New from me for @UKandEU - an overview of the Dublin system, and particularly its relevance to Channel crossings and Brexit - https://ukandeu.ac.uk/the-dublin-regulation-an-overview/
I'll flesh out the point of what might theoretically replace it in the following thread...1/

2/ Some of the discussion assumes that under the Dublin system, France has to take back anyone who reaches UK waters/territory. No: the rule is that the UK must prove five months' stay in France.

3/ I went back and checked the negotiations over the five month rule - it was a difficult concession that was watered down during the talks. Will the UK gain a more favourable result from outside the EU?

4/ The UK has looked to the EU's own relationship with non-EU countries, ie readmission treaties. These cover returns of citizens of both parties, but also people who are *not* citizens of either party, possibly asylum seekers, on a simplified basis.

5/ In practice, the return of asylum seekers to non-EU countries under readmission treaties is not linked to a full system of asylum responsibility like Dublin, but to a unilateral "safe third country" rule, partly harmonised by EU law on asylum procedures.

6/ Here's what the UK has proposed. It's similar to what the EU has agreed with some other non-EU countries. There would be no need to show five months' stay in France.

7/ The readmission process would also need an application to the other country's authorities, not simply an immediate return to France without further ado as some people suggest. (Remember: it's the *UK* proposing an application process here, following EU precedents)

8/ Commission assessment in 2011 of EU readmission treaties and the readmission of non-party citizens: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX%3A52011DC0076 Non-EU countries resist it; they need goodies before they will accept it; EU countries don't usually demand it in their own readmission treaties.

9/ Quite the roleplay in the UK/EU dynamic on readmission: the EU is behaving like non-EU countries usually do; while the UK is behaving like....the EU

10/ It's also spelled out in the last screenshot that countries *don't* accept there's a general international law obligation to readmit non-citizens. A lot of discussion of the Channel crossing assumes that France is shirking an obligation to that effect. What obligation?

11/ Look what countries and the EU agreed to in a UN protocol on the smuggling of migrants: an obligation to take back their citizens and permanent residents, *not* all persons who were smuggled. (UN and Council of Europe measures on trafficking in persons have the same rule) //