Entering Europe: The Making of a Single European Policy on Asylum and Immigration
(2002) JIL702 20021Department of Law
- Abstract
- If human rights are to be enjoyed by every person regardless of origin or nationality; if human rights are the rights of the human being under any circumstances, then the best way to gauge the quality and depth of our systems of protection of human rights will be to examine the extent to which these are enjoyed by their most genuine recipients: those deprived of wealth and citizenship, a home and a community; those who have been deprived of everything but their mere human condition.
The ambition of this paper is to shed light on the legal status of those persons who find themselves living as irregular aliens in democratic countries: rejected asylum seekers, undocumented or ‘illegal’ migrants, and those others who benefit from a... (More) - If human rights are to be enjoyed by every person regardless of origin or nationality; if human rights are the rights of the human being under any circumstances, then the best way to gauge the quality and depth of our systems of protection of human rights will be to examine the extent to which these are enjoyed by their most genuine recipients: those deprived of wealth and citizenship, a home and a community; those who have been deprived of everything but their mere human condition.
The ambition of this paper is to shed light on the legal status of those persons who find themselves living as irregular aliens in democratic countries: rejected asylum seekers, undocumented or ‘illegal’ migrants, and those others who benefit from a residence permit
but are nevertheless deprived of some fundamental rights. My interest is thus mainly focused on the international protection of persons with no nationality -or who have lost the effective protection of their own countries. But in so doing, I will also pose a worrisome question to
western European democracies: are they politically and legally prepared to offer the growing number of aliens in their territories anything more than unskilled wage labour?
Although this paper will deal only with Europe and its rather peculiar harmonization process, I am aware that other industrialized countries find themselves in a similar situation: on the one hand, influential financial lobbies and medium-sized companies urge governments to import great numbers of migrant workers in order to balance the lack of employees in a demographically stagnant West; on the other hand, the political bodies of these nations, anchored in an anachronistic relationship between human rights and nationality rights, welcome the newcomers in a manner that is somehow beyond the scope of the law, extending to deal with them the powers of bureaucracy and police while shutting the doors to regular tribunals and democratic institutions. In this light, are our democracies really prepared to protect the rights of the non-citizens? If not, are there effective international mechanisms of protection that are truly binding upon countries?
Aware of the complexity of the problem as well as of its current transcendence, I will try to demonstrate, based upon legal texts and States’ practice, that there is a certain person who is not sheltered by the rule of law: a person who inhabits a space outside the national legal
order, but for whom international law has not yet arrived. This person is nothing else than that, and is for this reason the very man of the rights –somehow the embodiment of the individual for whom universal rights were once proclaimed. We will call this person refugee, in the broadest sense of the term. (Less)
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- author
- Garcia, Alvaro
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- JIL702 20021
- year
- 2002
- type
- H1 - Master's Degree (One Year)
- subject
- keywords
- International Human Rights Law
- language
- English
- id
- 1670581
- date added to LUP
- 2010-09-15 10:46:01
- date last changed
- 2011-12-05 09:02:48
@misc{1670581,
abstract = {{If human rights are to be enjoyed by every person regardless of origin or nationality; if human rights are the rights of the human being under any circumstances, then the best way to gauge the quality and depth of our systems of protection of human rights will be to examine the extent to which these are enjoyed by their most genuine recipients: those deprived of wealth and citizenship, a home and a community; those who have been deprived of everything but their mere human condition.
The ambition of this paper is to shed light on the legal status of those persons who find themselves living as irregular aliens in democratic countries: rejected asylum seekers, undocumented or ‘illegal’ migrants, and those others who benefit from a residence permit
but are nevertheless deprived of some fundamental rights. My interest is thus mainly focused on the international protection of persons with no nationality -or who have lost the effective protection of their own countries. But in so doing, I will also pose a worrisome question to
western European democracies: are they politically and legally prepared to offer the growing number of aliens in their territories anything more than unskilled wage labour?
Although this paper will deal only with Europe and its rather peculiar harmonization process, I am aware that other industrialized countries find themselves in a similar situation: on the one hand, influential financial lobbies and medium-sized companies urge governments to import great numbers of migrant workers in order to balance the lack of employees in a demographically stagnant West; on the other hand, the political bodies of these nations, anchored in an anachronistic relationship between human rights and nationality rights, welcome the newcomers in a manner that is somehow beyond the scope of the law, extending to deal with them the powers of bureaucracy and police while shutting the doors to regular tribunals and democratic institutions. In this light, are our democracies really prepared to protect the rights of the non-citizens? If not, are there effective international mechanisms of protection that are truly binding upon countries?
Aware of the complexity of the problem as well as of its current transcendence, I will try to demonstrate, based upon legal texts and States’ practice, that there is a certain person who is not sheltered by the rule of law: a person who inhabits a space outside the national legal
order, but for whom international law has not yet arrived. This person is nothing else than that, and is for this reason the very man of the rights –somehow the embodiment of the individual for whom universal rights were once proclaimed. We will call this person refugee, in the broadest sense of the term.}},
author = {{Garcia, Alvaro}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Entering Europe: The Making of a Single European Policy on Asylum and Immigration}},
year = {{2002}},
}