scholarly journals “Escaping the Sunken Place: indefinite detention, asylum seekers, and resistance in Yarl’s Wood IRC”

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 167-186
Author(s):  
AIDAN SEYMOUR-BUTLER
Keyword(s):  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
British Politics ◽  
Hunger Strike ◽  
Immigration Detention ◽  
Migration System ◽  
Legal Challenges ◽  
Indefinite Detention ◽  
The Law ◽  
Immigration And Asylum ◽  
Philosophical Questions

 The Law Society has recently raised concerns about the UK’s migration system, stating that ‘failures in UK immigration and asylum undermine the rule of law’. Nowhere are those problems more apparent than in the UK’s handling of migrants and asylum seekers in detention centres. A particular recurring issue that speaks to the Law Society’s concern is the absence of a defined time limit for immigration detention. The possibility of indefinite detention has been a source of tension both within British politics, and within UK immigration detention centres. An example of this can be understood with reference to the Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre (IRC) in Bedfordshire, known for its controversial and rebellious past. In 2015 Nick Hardwick, a former chief prisoner inspector, labelled the Centre a place of ‘national concern’, after examining the mistreatment of vulnerable detainees. Yarl’s Wood’s problematic history, seems to have continued into the present, following a detainee led hunger strike that resulted in ‘renewed concerns’ over health care in detention centres. In addition to protesting the standard of medical treatment received by detainees, the strikers’ underlying focus was on indefinite detention.  The Home Office’s response to these strikes was unsympathetic, it sent a letter to detainees suggesting that their continued participation in the strike may in fact result in their removal being accelerated. Although, the hunger strike ended in March 2018 the Home Office’s response to the strike raised some interesting legal and philosophical questions about human rights and resistance in detention centres. In order to grapple with some of these issues, this paper has been separated into two parts. The first part will attempt to contextualise the existing immigration regime and explore how legal disputes might fit within the broader scheme of opposing indefinite detention. It will also briefly examine the legal challenges that may arise from the use of threats of accelerated deportations. 

scholarly journals Refugees and Asylum ~eekers In Britain: V.K. Immigration and Asylum Act,1999.

Refuge ◽  
2000 ◽  
pp. 35-42
Author(s):  
Anthony H. Richmond
Keyword(s):  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Differential Treatment ◽  
The Law ◽  
Immigration And Asylum ◽  
Systemic Discrimination

Trends in the numbers of asylum applicants in Britain 1997-00 are examined, together with changes in the law and in the treatment of refugees in the U.K. The system is designed to deter claimants, penalise anyone assisting illegal entry and aims to expedite removal. New regulations control the location of asylum seekers in the country, pending determination of their status. Differential treatment of various nationalities indicates systemic discrimination against certain groups.

14. Detention

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gina Clayton ◽  
Georgina Firth ◽  
Caroline Sawyer ◽  
Rowena Moffatt ◽  
Helena Wray
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Immigration Law ◽  
Common Phenomenon ◽  
Home Office ◽  
Immigration Detention ◽  
Indefinite Detention ◽  
The Law

Course-focused and comprehensive, the Textbook on series provides an accessible overview of the key areas on the law curriculum. This chapter focuses on the issue of immigration detention. The deprivation of liberty is one of the most serious infringements of fundamental human rights. In immigration law, individuals lose their liberty through the exercise of a statutory discretion by the Home Office or immigration officers. The chapter considers the statutory powers and executive guidelines, together with human rights and common law rules. The use of detention is an increasingly common phenomenon in the asylum process, and the key role of immigration bail is examined. The former use of indefinite detention for foreign terrorist suspects is discussed at the end of the chapter.

Health professionals confront the intentional harms of indefinite immigration detention: an Australian overview, evaluation of alternative responses and proposed strategy

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Dudley ◽  
Peter Young ◽  
Louise Newman ◽  
Fran Gale ◽  
Rohanna Stoddart
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Health Professional ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
Immigration Detention ◽  
Aggressive Approach ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Indefinite Detention ◽  
Degrading Treatment

Purpose Indefinite immigration detention causes well-documented harms to mental health, and international condemnation and resistance leave it undisrupted. Health care is non-independent from immigration control, compromising clinical ethics. Attempts to establish protected, independent clinical review and subvert the system via advocacy and political engagement have had limited success. The purpose of this study is to examine the following: how indefinite detention for deterrence (exemplified by Australia) injures asylum-seekers; how international legal authorities confirm Australia’s cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment; how detention compromises health-care ethics and hurts health professionals; to weigh arguments for and against boycotting immigration detention; and to discover how health professionals might address these harms, achieving significant change. Design/methodology/approach Secondary data analyses and ethical argumentation were employed. Findings Australian Governments fully understand and accept policy-based injuries. They purposefully dispense cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and intend suffering that causes measurable harms for arriving asylum-seekers exercising their right under Australian law. Health professionals are ethically conflicted, not wanting to abandon patients yet constrained. Indefinite detention prevents them from alleviating sufferings and invites collusion, potentially strengthening harms; thwarts scientific inquiry and evidence-based interventions; and endangers their health whether they resist, leave or remain. Governments have primary responsibility for detained asylum-seekers’ health care. Health professional organisations should negotiate the minimum requirements for their members’ participation to ensure independence, and prevent conflicts of interest and inadvertent collaboration with and enabling systemic harms. Originality/value Australia’s aggressive approach may become normalised, without its illegality being determined. Health professional colleges uniting over conditions of participation would foreground ethics and pressure governments internationally over this contagious and inexcusable policy.

The Impact of Emerging Technologies on the Law of Armed Conflict

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Armed Conflict ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Emerging Technologies ◽  
Legal Issues ◽  
Technological Advancement ◽  
Law Of Armed Conflict ◽  
Legal Challenges ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Impact

Emerging technologies have always played an important role in armed conflict. From the crossbow to cyber capabilities, technology that could be weaponized to create an advantage over an adversary has inevitably found its way into military arsenals for use in armed conflict. The weaponization of emerging technologies, however, raises challenging legal issues with respect to the law of armed conflict. As States continue to develop and exploit new technologies, how will the law of armed conflict address the use of these technologies on the battlefield? Is existing law sufficient to regulate new technologies, such as cyber capabilities, autonomous weapons systems, and artificial intelligence? Have emerging technologies fundamentally altered the way we should understand concepts such as law-of-war precautions and the principle of distinction? How can we ensure compliance and accountability in light of technological advancement? This book explores these critical questions while highlighting the legal challenges—and opportunities—presented by the use of emerging technologies on the battlefield.

Britain’s authoritarian turn

Race & Class ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 030639682198918
Author(s):  
Frances Webber
Keyword(s):  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Home Office ◽  
Legal Accountability ◽  
State Actors ◽  
Overseas Operations ◽  
Immigration And Asylum ◽  
Looking Back

Looking back, in December 2020, at the year since Boris Johnson’s Conservatives were swept back into government with a huge majority, the author identifies a raft of new laws, Home Office measures and government proposals in the fields of policing, crime, and immigration and asylum which embody long-held rightwing projects. Coming on top of already discriminatory practices, these include restrictions on the fundamental right of peaceful protest and freedom from invasive and racist policing, the subjection of migrants and asylum seekers to dangerous and inhumane conditions and the removal of legal protections for asylum seekers. Simultaneously, Bills going through parliament restrict or remove altogether the legal accountability of state actors, including soldiers on overseas operations and police informants, for crimes including torture and murder. Citizens’ recourse to the courts to challenge unlawful ministerial decisions is also under threat.

scholarly journals Learning to Detain Asylum Seekers and the Growth of Mass Immigration Detention in the United States

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Smita Ghosh ◽  
Mary Hoopes
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Infectious Diseases ◽  
Cognitive Dissonance ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
The United States ◽  
Critical Component ◽  
Immigration Detention ◽  
Important Shift

Drawing upon an analysis of congressional records and media coverage from 1981 to 1996, this article examines the growth of mass immigration detention. It traces an important shift during this period: while detention began as an ad hoc executive initiative that was received with skepticism by the legislature, Congress was ultimately responsible for entrenching the system over objections from the agency. As we reveal, a critical component of this evolution was a transformation in Congress’s perception of asylum seekers. While lawmakers initially decried their detention, they later branded them as dangerous. Lawmakers began describing asylum seekers as criminals or agents of infectious diseases in order to justify their detention, which then cleared the way for the mass detention of arriving migrants more broadly. Our analysis suggests that they may have emphasized the dangerousness of asylum seekers to resolve the dissonance between their theoretical commitments to asylum and their hesitance to welcome newcomers. In addition to this distinctive form of cognitive dissonance, we discuss a number of other implications of our research, including the ways in which the new penology framework figured into the changing discourse about detaining asylum seekers.

Legal Challenges for Romanian Family Medicine Practitioners in Times of ‘COVID-19’

2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-75
Author(s):  
Silviu Dumitru PAUN ◽  
◽  
Sinziana-Elena BIRSANU ◽  
Codrut Andrei NANU ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Family Medicine ◽  
General Practitioners ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Insurance Policy ◽  
Roles And Responsibilities ◽  
Applicable Law ◽  
Professional Activities ◽  
Legal Challenges ◽  
The Law ◽  
Special Circumstances

The general practitioners (GPs’) practice faced serious challenges as a result of COVID-19 pandemic, including from a legal point of view. In this context, a series of questions related to the GPs’ professional activities might arise such as: (i) what happens if a doctor makes a mistake because he/she is exhausted, as a result of overtime or (ii) if he/she performs medical acts outside the boundaries of his/her own specialty or without consent, as requested by his/her own conscience, by the situation, by the authorities and by his/her principal? In all these special circumstances this could mean that the doctor fails to comply with the applicable law. Moreover, because he/she breaches the law, the professional insurance policy will cease to be applicable. With new roles and responsibilities, the GPs should adjust their practice to the current conditions.

scholarly journals Public and Private Ownership in the Iranian Constitution: Principle 44, A Barrier for Development

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 73
Author(s):  
Ahmad Torabi
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Economic Impacts ◽  
Private Ownership ◽  
Public Ownership ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Third ◽  
Public Property ◽  
Legal Challenges ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Government

The Iranian legislator has sought to protect public property and public ownership in the Iranian Constitution in accordance with Islamic principles, terms and procedures. There are a number of principles that have been directly applied to this purpose; however, one principle has had a very significant impact on government domination of the economy of Iran: principle 44. This principle does not directly describe public property; rather, it aims to determine the areas that are under public ownership and are administered by the government. However, the principle has some contradictions and legal challenges in itself. In addition, the supplementary law that has been enacted to provide the areas for the enforcement of principle 44 fails to secure the aims of the legislator. Therefore, this paper analyses legal challenges of the principle, as well as its supplementary law, and gives suggestions to solve the challenges.This paper is divided into four sections. The first section provides an analysis of the principle itself, and its relationship and consistency with other principles of the constitution. In the second section, the Law of Implementation of Principle 44 and the legal challenges that arise from it will be discussed. The third section focuses on the negative economic impacts of this law, as well as case studies of it. Lastly, the paper provides a summary of suggestions to amend this law.

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