scholarly journals International Law and European Migration Policy: Where Is the Terrorism Risk?

Laws ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 30
Author(s):  
Didier Bigo ◽  
Elspeth Guild
Keyword(s):  
National Security ◽  
International Law ◽  
Migration Policy ◽  
State Violence ◽  
International Protection ◽  
European Context ◽  
Terrorism Risk ◽  
Politics Of Fear ◽  
And Migration ◽  
European Migration

This article examines how international law in form of treaties deals with the intersection of the three concepts. Our hypothesis is that international law, in the form of treaties, has been reluctant to engage with national security when dealing with migration, leaving this to national law. Instead, the intersection of national security—most commonly in the form of concerns about terrorism and migration—takes place in political discourse, which acts as a passerelle for various types of state violence against people classified or suspected of being migrants. We examine this mechanism that we call an insecurity continuum driven by the politics of fear in a European context. This is a politics that takes place outside of international law but has the effect of limiting access by individuals to international law protections, particularly in the case of people who claim international protection against persecution or torture.

What’s in a name? ‘Refugees’, ‘migrants’ and the politics of labelling

Race & Class ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 40-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tazreena Sajjad
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Migration Policy ◽  
Critical Examination ◽  
Security Threats ◽  
European Continent ◽  
The Past ◽  
Refugee Protection ◽  
European Immigration ◽  
European Migration

Through a critical examination of European immigration policy and using the case of Afghan asylum seekers in the European continent, this article argues that the politics of labelling and the criminalisation and securitisation of migration undermine the protection framework for the globally displaced. However, the issue goes deeper than state politicking to circumvent responsibilities under international law. The construction of migrants as victims at best, and as cultural and security threats at worst, particularly in the case of Muslim refugees, not only assists in their dehumanisation, it also legitimises actions taken against them through the perpetuation of a particular discourse on the European Self and the non-European Other. At one level, such a dynamic underscores the long-standing struggle of Europe to articulate its identity within the economic, demographic and cultural anxieties produced by the dynamics of globalisation. At another, these existing constructions, which hierarchise ‘worthiness’, are limited in their reflection of the complex realities that force people to seek refuge. Simultaneously, the labels, and the discourse of which they are part, make it possible for Europe to deny asylum claims and expedite deportations while being globally accepted as a human rights champion. This process also makes it possible for Europe to categorise turbulent contexts such as Afghanistan as a ‘safe country’, even at a time when the global refugee protection regime demands creative expansion. Ultimately, the politics of European migration policy illustrates the evolution of European Orientalist discourse – utilised in the past to legitimise colonisation and domination, now used to legitimise incarceration and deportation.

scholarly journals Understanding EU Solidarity and Migration in Crisis: Narratives of Health as Tools of Governance

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 677-692
Author(s):  
Rachael DICKSON
Keyword(s):  
Policy Development ◽  
Migration Policy ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Migration System ◽  
Migration Crisis ◽  
Crisis Narratives ◽  
And Migration ◽  
The Impact ◽  
European Migration

The so-called European migration crisis has sparked significant attention from scholars and raises questions about the role of solidarity between states and the European Union (EU) in providing policy solutions. Tension exists between upholding the rights of those seeking entry and pooling resources between Member States to provide a fair and efficient migration system. This article deconstructs the shifts that have occurred in EU migration policy since 2015 to highlight how narratives of health have become tools of governance. It does so to illuminate how health narratives operate to minimise the impact that conflicts on the nature and substance of EU solidarity have on policy development in response to the perceived crisis. A governmentality lens is used to analyse the implications of increasingly prescribed policy applications based on screening and categorising, and how measures operate to responsibilise migrants and third-countries to act according to EU values. It is argued this approach to governance results in migrants facing legal uncertainty in terms of accessing their rights and excludes them from the EU political space, which is problematic for how EU governance can be understood.

scholarly journals Legal aspects of the impact of educational migration on the national security of Ukraine

2021 ◽  
pp. 125-129
Author(s):  
V.V. Makarchuk
Keyword(s):  
National Security ◽  
Migration Policy ◽  
Legal Regulation ◽  
Legal Aspects ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Academic Mobility ◽  
Higher Education System ◽  
Educational Migration ◽  
And Migration ◽  
The Impact

The article is intended to analyze the legal aspects of the impact of educational migration on the national security of Ukraine. The legal basis of educational migration is considered, in particular, the consolidation of Ukraine's participation as a full participant in the European educational space in the regulatory framework and its impact on Ukraine's national security. The positive and negative consequences of educational migration and their impact on the national security of the country are analyzed. Comprehensive measures, including legal ones, in the field of education and migration policy of Ukraine have been identified. Academic mobility and cross-border education are identified as the main institutional forms of educational migration. Today, the national security of Ukraine requires the protection of the public interests of all segments of the population, including young students, which ensures the sustainable development of the country and society. The vast majority of migrants are young people - the most active part of the population, prone to self-development and adaptation in a multicultural environment. Ensuring constitutional human rights and freedoms, including their right to education, are objects of national security. It is proved that international integration and integration of the national higher education system into the European educational space is one of the main principles of state policy in education. Accordingly, there are academic mobility programs in the field of international cooperation. Migration policy is one of the priority areas of the country's development. Migration is a complex process that includes, in addition to legal, economic, socio-psychological, political and cultural interrelationships. The issue of modern migration processes and national security is always promising in terms of further research, especially given that the analysis of the migration situation in Ukraine shows that they are developing much more dynamically than the process of legal regulation in this area. In fact, it is about the complexity of effective legal regulation of migration processes in the country.

scholarly journals MARITIME INTERCEPTION ON FOREIGN VESSELS CARRYING REFUGEES AND ASYLUM SEEKERS: A VIOLATION OF UNCLOS AND NON-REFOULEMENT PRINCIPLE?

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 114-131
Author(s):  
Mizalfia Nursabrina
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
National Security ◽  
International Law ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
State Responsibility ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
International Protection ◽  
Illegal Acts ◽  
The Right ◽  
Refugees And Asylum Seekers

AbstractEach state has the right to protect their national security in every possible way, and illegal acts such as aliens entering their territory without permit is no exception. They implement regulations and policies to prevent people smuggling, including but not limited to maritime interception towards vessels under suspicion of carrying refugees and asylum seekers. Yet, in the implementation, human rights violations tend to happen towards the passengers. This study aims to analyze the legality of maritime interception on foreign vessels carrying refugee and asylum seekers, and whether the said conduct raised issues of state responsibility. This study was conducted by analyzing relevant international law instruments and principles such as non-refoulement and state responsibility. The analysis comes to the conclusion that states have certain jurisdiction to conduct interception operations at sea with the means of protecting their national security. Should the act of interception be proven to inflict threats of danger towards the lives of the intercepted refugees and asylum seekers, states should be held responsible for the damage bared to the refugees and asylum seekers. In conducting maritime interceptions, states should ensure the refugee identity of the intercepted vessel’s passengers and should seek that they are entitled to international protection. Keywords: Maritime Interception, Principle of Non-Refoulement, State Responsibility   AbstrakSetiap negara mempunyai hak untuk melindungi keamanan nasionalnya dengan berbagai macam cara, dan tindakan ilegal seperti warga negara asing memasuki wilayah suatu negara tanpa izin bukan merupakan pengecualian. Negara-negara telah menetapkan seperangkat peraturan dan kebijakan untuk mencegah penyelundupan manusia, termasuk namun tidak terbatas pada pencegatan kapal di wilayah laut yang dicurigai mengangkut para pengungsi dan pencari suaka. Namun, dalam pelaksanaannya tindakan pencegatan seringkali menimbulkan pelanggaran hak asasi manusia kepada para penumpang kapal. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menganalisis legalitas pencegatan kapal yang mengangkut pengungsi dan pencari suaka. Penelitian ini dilaksanakan dengan menganalisa hukum internasional yang berkaitan. Penelitian ini menunjukan bahwa negara mempunyai yurisdiksi tertentu untuk melaksanakan pencegatan di laut dengan tujuan untuk mempertahankan keamanan nasional. Selain itu, negara harus bertanggung jawab atas kerugian yang dialami oleh para pengungsi dan pencari suaka selaku penumpang kapal yang dicegat apabila pencegatan tersebut menimbulkan ancaman bagi hidup mereka. Dalam melaksanakan pencegatan di wilayah laut, negara-negara harus memastikan identitas para penumpang kapal yang dicegat, dan memberikan perlindungan internasional bagi mereka yang berstatus sebagai pengungsi dan pencari suaka. Kata Kunci: Pencegatan Wilayah Laut, Prinsip Non-Refoulement, Tanggung Jawab Negara

The Politics of Plausible Legality

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Sanders
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
National Security ◽  
International Law ◽  
State Violence ◽  
Global War On Terror ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Legal Rules ◽  
Global War

After 9/11, the Bush administration and, to a lesser degree, the Obama administration authorized controversial interrogation, detention, trial, lethal targeting, and surveillance practices. At the same time, American officials frequently invoked legal norms to justify these policies. This chapter introduces the book’s central questions: how can we make sense of these attempts to legalize human rights abuses and how does law influence state violence? As initially outlined in this chapter, the book argues that national security legal cultures shape how political actors interpret, enact, and evade legal rules. In the global war on terror, a culture of legal rationalization pushed American authorities to construct plausible legality, or legal cover for contentious counterterrorism policies. This culture contrasts with cultures of exception and cultures of secrecy, which have shaped American national security practice in the past, as well as a culture of human rights favored by many international law and human rights advocates.

scholarly journals Norms and Values in Refugee Resettlement: A Literature Review of Resettlement to the EU

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franziska Böhm ◽  
Ingrid Jerve Ramsøy ◽  
Brigitte Suter
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Migration Policy ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Value Transmission ◽  
International Protection ◽  
Refugee Protection ◽  
Norms And Values ◽  
External Dimension ◽  
And Migration ◽  
The Eu

As a result of the refugee reception crisis in 2015 the advocacy for increasing resettlement numbers in the overall refugee protection framework has gained momentum, as has research on resettlement to the EU. While the UNHCR purports resettlement as a durable solution for the international protection of refugees, resettlement programmes to the European Union are seen as a pillar of the external dimension of the EU’s asylum and migration policies and management. This paper presents and discusses the literature regarding the value transmissions taking place within these programmes. It reviews literature on the European resettlement process – ranging from the selection of refugees to be resettled, the information and training they receive prior to travelling to their new country of residence, their reception upon arrival, their placement and dispersal in the receiving state, as well as programs of private and community sponsorship. The literature shows that even if resettlement can be considered an external dimension of European migration policy, this process does not end at the border. Rather, resettlement entails particular forms of reception, placement and dispersal as well as integration practices that refugees are confronted with once they arrive in their resettlement country. These practices should thus be understood in the context of the resettlement regime as a whole. In this paper we map out where and how values (here understood as ideas about how something should be) and norms (expectations or rules that are socially enforced) are transmitted within this regime. ‘Value transmission’ is here understood in a broad sense, taking into account the values that are directly transmitted through information and education programmes, as well as those informing practices and actors’ decisions. Identifying how norms and values figure in the resettlement regime aid us in further understanding decision making processes, policy making, and the on-the-ground work of practitioners that influence refugees’ lives. An important finding in this literature review is that vulnerability is a central notion in international refugee protection, and even more so in resettlement. Ideas and practices regarding vulnerability are, throughout the resettlement regime, in continuous tension with those of security, integration, and of refugees’ own agency. The literature review and our discussion serve as a point of departure for developing further investigations into the external dimension of value transmission, which in turn can add insights into the role of norms and values in the making and un-making of (external) boundaries/borders.

scholarly journals Do no harm? The impact of policy on migration scholarship

2020 ◽  
pp. 239965442096556
Author(s):  
Maurice Stierl
Keyword(s):  
Migration Policy ◽  
Engaged Scholarship ◽  
Migration Research ◽  
Do No Harm ◽  
The Media ◽  
And Migration ◽  
No Harm Principle ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Harmful Effects ◽  
European Migration

The mass migrations of 2015 were not merely a watershed moment for ‘EUrope’ but also for the scholarly study of migration to EUrope. With academic expertise and insights becoming much sought-after in the media and political discourse, migration scholarship has gained in unknown popularity over recent years. This current ‘migration knowledge hype’ has particularly benefited scholarship that claims to be of relevance for EUropean policymakers in finding responses to ‘migratory pressures’. This article critically interrogates the increasing intimacy between the worlds of migration scholarship and migration policy and seeks to unpack how the quest for policy-relevance has shaped the process of research itself. The impact of policy on migration research can be discerned when policy categories, assumptions, and needs constitute the bases and (conceptual) frames of research that seeks to be legible to policymakers. However, with EUropean migration policies causing devastation and undeniably harmful effects on migrant lives, what is the responsibility of researchers for the knowledge they produce and disseminate? Should the ‘do no harm’ principle prevalent in the migration discipline be expanded to also include the potentially harmful consequences resulting from research made relevant to migration policymakers? This article makes the case for an engaged scholarship that does not shy away from intervening in the contested field of migration with the intention not to fix but to amplify the epistemic and other crises of the EUropean border regime.

The External Dimension of EU Migration and Asylum Policies

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Migration Policy ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
Exchange Students ◽  
Refugee Protection ◽  
Academic Exchange ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Refugee Law ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Migration Law

refugee law that took place in Barcelona. In the spirit of intergenerational academic exchange, students, young researchers, and established experts engage in interdisciplinary discussions on fundamental questions of migration law and migration policy, which have become more virulent than ever since the refugee protection crisis of 2015. European, human rights and international law aspects are supplemented by national perspectives from Belgium, Bulgaria, the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, Spain, Turkey and the United Kingdom. The entire project sees itself as a laboratory for the exchange of ideas on how modern migration societies can orient themselves towards a sustainable future. With contributions by Claudia Candelmo, Carmine Conte, Francisco Javier Donaire Villa, Arolda Elbasani, Leonard Amaru Feil, Francesco Luigi Gatta, Chad Heimrich, Markus Kotzur, Annalisa Morticelli, David Moya, Claudia Pretto, Andrea Romano, David Fernandez Rojo, Senada Šelo Šabić, Valentina Savazzi, Ülkü Sezgi Sözen and Catharina Ziebritzki.

‘Restore Moscow to the Muscovites’: Othering ‘the migrants’ in the 2013 Moscow mayoral elections

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helge Blakkisrud ◽  
Pål Kolstø
Keyword(s):  
Migration Policy ◽  
Election Campaign ◽  
Migrant Population ◽  
Mayoral Elections ◽  
Mayoral Election ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Russian Identity

Russia encompasses the world’s second-largest migrant population in absolute numbers. This chapter explores the role migrants play in contemporary Russian identity discourse, focusing on the topic that ordinary Muscovites identified as most important during the 2013 Moscow mayoral election campaign: the large number of labour migrants in the capital. It explores how the decision to open up the elections into a more genuine contest compelled the regime candidate, incumbent mayor Sergei Sobianin, to adopt a more aggressive rhetoric on migration than otherwise officially endorsed by the Kremlin. The chapter concludes that the Moscow electoral experiment, allowing other candidates than the regime’s own hand-picked, ‘controllable’ sparring partners to run, contributed to pushing the borders of what mainstream politicians saw as acceptable positions on migrants and migration policy.

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