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In Quest of Sanctuary: The Gendered Challenges Within the Complex Landscape of Asylum-Seeking
Abstract
This chapter explores the complex landscape of asylum-seeking, focusing on the 1951 Refugee Convention and the rights it grants to those seeking refuge, emphasizing principles like non-discrimination and non-refoulement. The chapter highlights the tension between international legal guarantees and state discretion in granting asylum, underscoring the gap between aspirational goals and practical outcomes. It also delves into scholarly literature on migration, border control, and the “deviant migrant” narrative, offering insights into the complexities of asylum practices. It addresses criminological and gendered dimensions, with a specific focus on violence against asylum-seeking women, revealing unique challenges. Overall, the analysis covers historical perspectives, contemporary challenges, and evolving global migration dynamics, providing a comprehensive understanding of the intricate journey asylum seekers undergo for safety and justice.
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The current chapter will allow a better understanding of refugee women's situation in global-forced migration. It also offers a comprehensive account of the ways in which refugee women's experiences of violence are shaped by gendered relations and structures. Furthermore, the chapter will analyze the interactions between the gender identity formation of men and women, the context of escape, displacement and asylum seeking, and the experience or manifestation of gender-based violence against refugee women. Finally, it also intends to illustrate how structural and symbolic violence and power relations cooperate to shape experiences of violence for refugee women and how it can influence and perpetuate interpersonal violence. In this sense, several studies are presented that demonstrate, on one hand, how gender relations are affected by escape, displacement, and asylum, and how they can create different practices of structural and symbolic violence; and, on the other hand, draw attention to the current lack of gender-specific analysis of the problem of asylum and refugees.
This study was commissioned by the European Parliament's Policy Department for Citizens' Rights and Constitutional Affairs at the request of the FEMM Committee. The study focuses on the trauma that refugee and asylum-seeking women suffer when reaching their host country. Drawing on an extensive survey of scientific literature, international organisations' reports, websites, press, and discussions with relevant experts, it highlights survivors' different needs and the structural, cultural and psychological barriers to their resettlement in the EU. It argues for coordinated, gender-and culture-sensitive policies, EU collective responsibility in managing the refugee crisis and multi-level interventions from an intersectionality perspective.
A global migration of individuals fleeing persecution, violence and armed conflict reached almost 60 million world-wide in 2015. This world-wide crisis of displacement reflects people seeking safety across borders and oceans; dangerous journeys that compound the trauma endured by these women, men and children. Refugees/asylum seekers face barriers upon entry to the U.S. The Western New York Center for Survivors (WNYCST) provides care coordination/trauma-informed care to mitigate these challenges. The objective of this study was to explore the resettlement experiences of survivors of torture living in Western New York, who had received services from the WNYCST; identifying challenges, unmet needs, and services that were helpful. Secondarily, we describe the experiences of asylum seekers and legally resettled refugees, who due to their differing legal status, might be expected to have different experiences. Data were collected using semi-structured qualitative interviews.
Results
Three themes emerged: mental health challenges, relating to their experiences in their home country and their separation from family; unmet needs, including lack of a sense of purpose and meaning, difficulty navigating services, and missing connections to community; and coping strategies, including WNYCST assistance with connecting with sources of social support in their new community. WNYCST services were helpful, particularly the assistance and connection with care coordinators and local support groups. This care and outreach helped to mitigate feelings of separation and apartness from their home countries and families.
Conclusions
Some refugees/asylum seekers continue to struggle with unmet needs, issues of loss and isolation. If care providers recognize signs of stress early, appropriate interventions can be implemented. Care connections and trauma informed treatment with an emphasis on recreating ties with communities, may be one important factor in ensuring successful integration.
States increasingly prosecute irregular migrants-asylum-seekers included-for their (alleged) involvement in human smuggling during their own migration journey. Based on a literature review and interviews with lawyers, prosecutors, judges, and migrants on Sicily, this article provides insight into the nature and scale of this phenomenon in Italy and discusses the effects of criminal prosecution on these migrants' asylum procedures. From 2015-2018, as a standard operating procedure, roughly 1,300 "captains" and navigators-scafisti (literally: smugglers by boat)-of small dinghies with migrants arriving in Italy have been arrested for suspicion of "aiding clandestine (or irregular) immigration". Most scafisti are migrants themselves and there are strong indications that they were forced to steer or navigate the boat. These prosecuted migrants face many difficulties in proving duress and are often inadequately advised about the consequences of a criminal conviction on their subsequent immigration procedures. After a conviction, as well as after an acquittal, they are often excluded from official reception centres and have difficulties accessing asylum procedures. When they manage to apply for asylum, they will be denied international protection if they have been convicted. When they cannot be expelled, they may end up in a legal limbo, having to rely on a temporary humanitarian status with strict limitations.
As gendered discourses around migration proliferate, research and practitioner focus is often trained on experiences of women in interpersonal capacities, primarily in regard to subjections to predominately male violence. Drawing on research in Britain and activist participation with women seeking asylum, this article expands this focus into the realm of state-corporate harms against women. Previous research demonstrates that immigration law and policy often work to minimalize autonomy at the ground level, and dependence on spousal visas or housing and finances can exacerbate dependence on men, including violent men. This article argues that this punitive landscape of Britain’s asylum system facilitates further violence against women seeking asylum, rather than ensuring protection. Moreover, harm is inflicted by the structures of coercive control set forth by the state and its amorphous relations with corporations. Such structures are largely manufactured by the British state, but increasingly enacted by its corporate allies. These environments, I argue, mirror those of domestically violent perpetrators and work to gradually corrode women’s autonomy and indeed sense of safety.
Women asylum seekers and refugees face huge challenges related to their sexual and reproductive health (SRH) and rights. In this article we explore the structural determinants of vulnerability to poor SRH for these women in South Africa, and focus particularly on the political, legal and economic structures which render them vulnerable. Based on a qualitative study carried out in Durban, South Africa, we argue that it is vital to go beyond analyses which prioritise the socio-cultural barriers to sexual and reproductive health and rights for asylum seekers and refugees, and to consider the wider national and international policies and legislation which create barriers to these women's rights to SRH.
In 2014, more than 200,000 refugees and migrants fled for safety across the Mediterranean Sea. Crammed into overcrowded, unsafe boats, thousands drowned, prompting the Pope to warn that the sea was becoming a mass graveyard. The early months of 2015 saw no respite. In April alone more than 1,300 people drowned. This led to a large public outcry to increase rescue operations.
Throughout this period, UNHCR and other humanitarian organisations, engaged in a series of largescale media advocacy exercises, aiming at convincing European countries to do more to help. It was crucial work, setting the tone for the dramatic rise in attention to the refugee crisis that followed in the second half of 2015.
But the media was far from united in its response. While some outlets joined the call for more assistance, others were unsympathetic, arguing against increasing rescue operations. To learn why, UNHCR commissioned a report by the Cardiff School of Journalism to explore what was driving media coverage in five different European countries: Spain, Italy, Germany, the UK and Sweden.
Researchers combed through thousands of articles written in 2014 and early 2015, revealing a number of important findings for future media advocacy campaigns.
Most importantly, they found major differences between countries, in terms of the sources journalists used (domestic politicians, foreign politicians, citizens, or NGOs), the language they employed, the reasons they gave for the rise in refugee flows, and the solutions they suggested. Germany and Sweden, for example, overwhelmingly used the terms ‘refugee’ or ‘asylum seeker’, while Italy and the UK press preferred the word ‘migrant’. In Spain, the dominant term was ‘immigrant’. These terms had an important impact on the tenor of each country’s debate.
Media also differed widely in terms of the predominant themes to their coverage. For instance, humanitarian themes were more common in Italian coverage than in British, German or Spanish press. Threat themes (such as to the welfare system, or cultural threats) were the most prevalent in Italy, Spain and Britain.
Overall, the Swedish press was the most positive towards refugees and migrants, while coverage in the United Kingdom was the most negative, and the most polarised. Amongst those countries surveyed, Britain’s right-wing media was uniquely aggressively in its campaigns against refugees and migrants.
This report provides important insights into each country’s press culture during a crucial period of agenda-setting for today’s refugee and migrant crisis. It also offers invaluable insights into historical trends. What emerges is a clear message that for media work on refugees, one size does not fit all. Effective media advocacy in different European nations requires targeted, tailored campaigns, which takes into account their unique cultures and political context.
Research on immigration and violent crime has been showing, in recent years, the inexistence of a correlation: in fact, the most recent North-American studies reveal that in areas where immigrants tend to settle the most, violent crime has been decreasing. This is explained by the selectivity theory and the migrants’ search for better conditions of living, avoiding attracting attention to themselves. In the research made on inmates convicted for crimes that we considered violent, we concluded that only in robbery crimes migrants stand out in the rise of convictions. Nevertheless, these results are not statistically significant.
A condição jurídica de “Irregular” dos imigrantes na entrada e na permanência, em determinado país, é uma decisão de cada um dos Estados, que escolhem entre criminalizar e proibir esses comportamentos ou os integrar e “regularizar”, permitindo o seu acesso a (alguns) direitos dos nacionais. Nos últimos anos vários Estados dos EUA enveredaram por uma política pública de “crimigração” fazendo convergir a lei criminal com a lei de imigração com o objetivo de punir e expulsar os imigrantes “construídos” como irregulares. Na Europa também têm sido implementadas recentemente políticas, direito e práticas “crimigratórias” transplantadas dos EUA. No entanto, países como Portugal acolhem moderadamente essa tendência, continuando a optar preferencialmente pela inclusão e por uma legislação de “regularização permanente” dos imigrantes.
In feminist theory, intersectionality has become the predominant way of conceptualizing the relation between systems of oppression which construct our multiple identities and our social locations in hierarchies of power and privilege. The aim of this essay is to clarify the origins of intersectionality as a metaphor, and its theorization as a provisional concept in Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw's work, followed by its uptake and mainstreaming as a paradigm by feminist theorists in a period marked by its widespread and rather unquestioned – if, at times, superficial and inattentive – usage. I adduce four analytic benefits of intersectionality as a research paradigm: simultaneity, complexity, irreducibility, and inclusivity. Then, I gesture at some critiques of intersectionality advanced in the last few years, during which the concept has increasingly come under scrutiny.
The article explores the nature of surveillance and crime control as they enter the sphere of global governance. Taking the European Union (EU) as a point of departure, it examines the relationship between surveillance and sovereignty, and looks more broadly at the role that transnational surveillance and crime control play in constructing a particular type of globally divided polity. Transnational surveillance practices are increasingly addressing a public which is no longer defined exclusively as the citizenry of the nation state, nor are all European citizens entitled to the privileges of such citizenship. Through the notions of bona fide global citizens and ‘crimmigrant’ others the article details how the seeming universality of citizenship is punctuated by novel categories of globally included and excluded populations, thus revealing the inadequacy of the traditional liberal language of citizenship as the springboard for articulating a critical discourse of rights.
There is a growing sense of urgency within international humanitarian aid agencies to intervene quickly when faced with organized violence stemming from war or armed conflict. From this perspective, the rape of refugees calls for prompt psychological intervention. Beyond this sense of urgency, the premises underlying the different models of humanitarian intervention being utilized require further documentation. What concepts and practices characterize the mental health interventions for refugee women who have suffered sexual violence? How is transcultural psychiatry conceived and practised in refugee camps? How is ‘refugee culture’ defined? What do these definitions imply when translated into therapeutic care to rape victims? This article discusses these issues, and raises some concerns about the appropriateness and the scope of UN and nongovernmental approaches.
There is now considerable evidence that witnessing domestic violence can have adverse consequences for children. Our aim is to present the socio-demographic correlates of children witnessing domestic violence and its association with childhood mental disorders. The biographic, socio-demographic and socio-economic characteristics of 7865 children and their families and measures of traumatic events including witnessing domestic violence were entered into a logistic regression analysis to establish the strength of association between witnessing severe domestic violence and childhood disorders. About 4% of children had witnessed severe domestic violence according to parent reports. Factors independently associated with a greater likelihood of a child witnessing domestic violence were: older age group, mixed ethnicity, physical disorder, several children in family, divorced parents, living in rented accommodation, poor neighbourhoods, the mother's emotional state and family dysfunction. Witnessing severe domestic violence almost tripled the likelihood of children having conduct disorder but was not independently associated with emotional disorders. There is a growing need for more research on the consequences of witnessing domestic violence to increase the awareness of social workers and policy-makers to identify the needs of children who witness domestic violence.
This chapter explores the promise and pitfalls of human rights-based challenges to conditions in immigration detention in Greece. Drawing on over five years of research with a variety of organisations in Greece, from the National Preventive Mechanism to independent activist organisations, like the Border Violence Monitoring Network, we critically assess their limited impact on border control policies and set out a series of factors that undermine their efforts. Notwithstanding widespread international condemnation of the treatment of migrants and refugees in Greece, successive governments have managed to deflect criticism and remained indifferent to demands for change. What, under these conditions, can human rights achieve and how might further research into this field bring gross human rights violations to light and lead to more accountability?
Refugee and asylum-seeking mothers perform the duties of carework during and after the complex circumstances associated with irregular journeys and settlement in host countries. Utilizing motherhood as a central frame, the article links policies of border securitization with the tangible gendered consequences they produce in the daily carework of mothers. Past literature has explored gendered implications of border crossings and settlement, but rarely have authors examined these themes in tandem and never in the context of mothers and their carework. Based on narrative interviews with refugee and asylum-seeking mothers, I analyse how mothers’ everyday lives and, more specifically, their performance of carework are disrupted during migration, by boat journeys and detention, and after migration, by limited governmental assistance and restricted family reunification in host countries.
In the United Kingdom, as in other jurisdictions, the language of vulnerability and ‘safeguarding’, protection and care is becoming increasingly prevalent, often dovetailing with punitive rationales and practices. Drawing from empirical material collected during a study on police–immigration partnership in everyday policing, the paper analyses how contemporaneous punitive and humanitarian turns in criminal justice are experienced by law enforcement officers doing border work on the ground and considers what implications these have. To what extent does the impetus to protect and care bolster or complicate the exercise of state coercive powers? And what challenges and tensions does it evince? It argues for a more nuanced understanding of the moral pain of border work and its disruptive potentials.
The refugee Odyssey is often not a linear, straightforward movement from point A to point B, from sending country to receiving one. Rather, it involves multiple paths, gateways, entry and exit points, and territories en route to the country of resettlement. Crucially, the journey involves not only mobility but also immobility and/or periods of stasis—breaks that are, in many cases, a natural part of the journey. Alongside this diversity of paths and movements, the refugee experience—understood in terms of the practices and acts of refugees en route—is also far from homogeneous. Each journey may well have an episodic character, where the course, direction, and periods of waiting for one asylum traveller can differ significantly from those of previous and/or future travellers—even if the departure point and destination are the same. Within this context, this article examines the breaks or periods of stasis that punctuate the refugee Odyssey, which we call mobistasis. We base our empirical findings on research conducted with people en route to resettlement in Canada via Turkey where they initially seek asylum and await resettlement. Drawing on fieldwork in Turkey and Canada between April 2014 and October 2016 and semi-structured interviews conducted with asylum travellers from non-European countries, the article illustrates how Turkey as the country of asylum is more than a space of mere ‘transit’. It rather constitutes a space of mobistasis—stasis within movement—in the asylum voyage towards countries of resettlement
Over the past few decades, most societies have become more repressive, their laws more relentless, their magistrates more inflexible, independently of the evolution of crime. In this book, using an approach both genealogical and ethnographic, distinguished anthropologist Didier Fassin addresses the major issues raised by this punitive moment through an inquiry into the very foundations of punishment. What is punishment? Why punish? Who is punished? With these three questions he initiates a critical dialogue with moral philosophy and legal theory on the definition, justification, and distribution of punishment. Going against the triumphing penal populism, this investigation, based on ten years of empirical research on police, justice, and prison systems, proposes a salutary revision of the presuppositions that nourish the passion for punishing and invites readers to rethink the place of punishment in the contemporary world. The theses developed in the volume are discussed by the criminologist David Garland, the historian Rebecca McLennan, and the sociologist Bruce Western, to whom Fassin responds in a short essay, asking, What is a critique of punishment?. © The Regents of the University of California 2018. All rights reserved.
Britain is often heralded as a country in which the rights and welfare of survivors of conflict and persecution are well embedded, and where the standard of living conditions for those seeking asylum is relatively high. Drawing on a decade of activism and research in the North West of England, this book contends that, on the contrary, conditions are often structurally violent. For survivors of gendered violence, harm inflicted throughout the process of seeking asylum can be intersectional and compound the impacts of previous experiences of violent continuums. The everyday threat of detention and deportation; poor housing and inadequate welfare access; and systemic cuts to domestic and sexual violence support all contribute to a temporal limbo which limits women’s personal autonomy and access to basic human rights. By reflecting on evidence from interviews, focus groups, activist participation and oral history, Gendered Harm and Structural Violence provides a unique insight into the everyday impacts of policy and practice that arguably result in the infliction of further gendered harms on survivors of violence and persecution. Of interest to students and scholars of criminology, zemiology, sociology, human rights, migration policy, state violence and gender, this book develops on and adds to the expanding literatures around immigration, crimmigration and asylum.
This revised and updated 2nd edition of Freedman's hard-hitting study aims to remedy the current lack of gender-specific analyses of asylum and refugee issues. It provides a comprehensive account of the situation of women in global forced migration, and explains the ways in which women's experiences are shaped by gendered relations and structures.
The current refugee “crisis” in Europe has created multiple forms of vulnerability and insecurity for refugee women including various forms of sexual and gender-based violence. Increasing numbers of women, either alone or with family, are attempting to reach Europe to seek protection from conflict and violence in their countries, but these women are subject to violence during their journey and/or on arrival in a destination country. The lack of adequate accommodation or reception facilities for refugees and migrants in Europe, as well as the closure of borders which has increased the need for smugglers to help them reach Europe, acts to exacerbate the violence and insecurity.
The dangers facing migrants attempting to reach the EU by boat have been highlighted in many reports and media articles. However,
although more and more women are among those trying to reach Europe, little attention has so far been paid to the gendered
nature of the insecurities facing these migrants. This article examines the experiences of women arriving in Kos, Greece,
as part of a journey to seek protection in Europe, and analyses the ways in which gendered forms of violence, gendered divisions
of space and relations of power create specific insecurities for these women.
The first edition of The Law of Refugee Status (published in 1991) is generally regarded as the seminal text on interpreting the refugee definition set by the UN's 1951 Refugee Convention. Its groundbreaking analysis served as the bedrock for not only much judicial reasoning, but also for a burgeoning academic literature in law and related fields. This second edition builds on the strong critical focus and human rights orientation of the first edition, but undertakes an entirely original analysis of the jurisprudence of leading common law and select civil law states. The authors provide robust responses to the most difficult questions of refugee status in a clear and direct way. The result is a comprehensive and truly global analysis of the central question in asylum law: who is a refugee?.
The concept of 'discrimination' has several meanings and usages in refugee law. It goes to the very core of the refugee law regime, yet it does not have a clear definition. This article seeks to explore and critique the ways in which 'discrimination' is interpreted and applied by decision makers in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. It is primarily concerned with 'cumulative grounds discrimination': namely, the understanding in refugee law that the cumulative effect of various discriminatory measures can amount to persecution, even where each incident of discrimination alone would not suffice. It critically analyzes the approaches of decision makers in such cases, in light of various statements of principle made by UNHCR. This article raises a number of questions, issues and inconsistencies that merit further research and consideration. It argues that decision makers should adopt a broader approach in discrimination cases: they should consider the impact of discrimination on the meaningful and effective enjoyment of rights, as well as on the individual and his or her ability to live a dignified life. The article concludes that adopting a broader approach in discrimination cases would be more consistent with fundamental principles of international human rights and refugee law: equality, non-discrimination and the inherent dignity of all human beings. © The Author (2010). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
This book presents the first comprehensive analysis of the human rights of refugees as set by the UN Refugee Convention. In an era where States are increasingly challenging the logic of simply assimilating refugees to their own citizens, questions are now being raised about whether refugees should be allowed to enjoy freedom of movement, to work, to access public welfare programs, or to be reunited with family members. Doubts have been expressed about the propriety of exempting refugees from visa and other immigration rules, and whether there is a duty to admit refugees at all. Hathaway links the standards of the UN Refugee Convention to key norms of international human rights law, and applies his analysis to the world's most difficult protection challenges. This is a critical resource for advocates, judges, and policymakers. It will also be a pioneering scholarly work for graduate students of international and human rights law.
The article critically examines the peculiar co-existence of the securitization of the border and the growing presence and
prominence of human rights and humanitarian ideals in border policing practices. Concretely, it focuses on Frontex, the agency
tasked with management of EU’s external borders. Based on interviews with Frontex officials and border guard officers, and
on the analysis of relevant policy documents and official reports, the article explores what may come across as a discrepancy
between the organization’s activities and its public self-presentation. The objective is to provide an insight into the complex
and volatile relationship between policing and human rights, which marks contemporary migration control as well as mundane
forms of professional and personal self-understanding.
One of the most groundbreaking sociology texts of the mid-20th century, Howard S. Becker's Outsiders is a thorough exploration of social deviance and how it can be addressed in an understanding and helpful manner. A compulsively readable and thoroughly researched exploration of social deviance and the application of what is known as "labeling theory" to the studies of deviance. With particular research into drug culture, Outsiders analyzes unconventional individuals and their place in normal society.
G]ovenments throughout the world have tried to avoid dealing with the difficult questions raised by refugee and related movements. One method is to seek to redefine the problem as one not involving obligation or responsibility. Some governments also use the law in an attempt to limit the scope of their obligations. Another technique... is to engage in an exercise of extra-territorial jurisdiction ... and to seek to justify that practice on the ground that somehow obligations towards refugees need not be observed. States have also tried detention, discriminatory treatment, and denial of other human rights in their attempts to dissuade the refugee and asylum seekers .... In Australia, where there is no constitutional protection or Bill of Rights, the Government has continued to expand its field of executive, arbitrary power which began with the introduction of mandatory non-reviewable detention in 1991. In the case of the Tampa, Norway's position, based on Article 98 of [the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea], customary international law and generally accepted humanitarian standards, was that Australia was obliged to allow those rescued into the nearest port: this, in Norway's view, was Christmas Island. However, "next port of call" is not a self-defining or self-applying concept, and in many instances it may be relative to the particular circumstances of rescue .... [T]he premises of the international protection regime (which draws on the specifics of international refugee law, on human rights law, and on more generally applicable rules), does provide a normative and institutional framework within which States ought to seek solutions. The U.N. Committee on Human Rights found that [Australia's] policy and practice of mandatory and non-reviewable detention was arbitrary and a breach of Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and a similar conclusion was reached by the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission in 1998. The question effectively arising in the Tampa case was whether the State primarily engaged had the courage to respond internationally, or whether it would look no further than its own narrow and short-term self-interest. The Tampa incident is a reminder that the refugee regime is not a seamless web, even if certain core and often competing principles retain their normative power.
Increasingly hard-line and restrictive asylum policies and practices of many governments call into question the scope of protections offered by the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. Has the focus on the 1951 Convention been to the detriment and subordination of other rights and standards of treatment owed to refugees and asylum- seekers under international human rights law? Which standard applies in the event that there is a clash or inconsistency between the two bodies of law? In analysing the interface between international refugee law and international human rights law, this article looks at the right to family life and the right to work. Through this examination, content and meaning is offered to the almost forgotten component of the right ‘to enjoy’ asylum in Article 14(1) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948.
Migratory movements and the accompanying criminalization and penalization of migrants are among the most ancient and recurring features of the modern world, true icons of modernity. A characteristic of the last 15 years of globalization has been the re-emergence on a large scale in Europe of such a recurring theme, this time extended to countries that used to be e-migrating countries and are now im-migrating countries, such as Spain, Portugal and Italy. After having estimated the extent of `overrepresentation' of foreigners in European penal systems today, I examine the situation in the Italian case and the specificities of the criminalization of foreigners in this country. I claim that we are now facing yet another episode in the recurring processes of forced inclusion, subordination and `subjectivation' of recruits into a new draft of the European working class, and that the concomitant criminalization and penalization are tightly related to those processes.
Coping with refugees arriving by sea is a problem that has existed for a number of years.
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Throughout this period the crux of the matter has remained the same, reconciling the humanitarian plight of refugees and asylum-seekers with the destination States' concerns about illegal immigration, mass migrations of people, and the costs of asylum. The boarding of the Tampa by Australian SAS troops in August 2001, in order to prevent the disembarkation of 433 asylum-seekers on Christmas Island, has once again brought into sharp focus the acute tension created between competing legal norms, and between moral and legal considerations. What are the rights of vessels and people in distress under the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea and other maritime agreements? How do commercial considerations affect the obligation to assist those in distress at sea? What are the rights of refugees under the 1951 Refugee Convention and other human rights instruments? What are the powers of a coastal State to protect itself from threats to national security in its coastal waters? This article examines the legal obligations incumbent upon coastal States and flag States in respect of asylum-seekers rescued at sea and seeks to answer these questions. It goes on to suggest that the law in respect of search, rescue, and refuge is highly unsatisfactory because a number of key obligations are poorly defined and inadequately implemented. It alsoseems clear that insufficient weight is given to humanitarian considerations. Finally, consideration is given to possible solutions to the problem.
As has been widely recognised and commented upon, border controls across Europe and America have been strenuously tightened since September 11, 2001. In fact, of course, the movement of certain non-citizens in and around most western, industrialised countries had been restricted for some time predating the advent of the ‘war on terror.’ In this article I will explore the particular use being made in Britain of criminal justice rhetoric and policy as a means of securing the border and the implications of this reliance on criminal justice discourses in the development of immigration and asylum policies. Building on work by David Garland (1996) and Jonathan Simon (2007), I suggest not only that the increased concern over border control reflects a decline in the power of the state in the face of globalisation, but also that the adoption of harsh rhetoric about foreigners risks undermining the agency and democratic freedoms long held dear by British citizens.
Expanding mechanisms of border control increasingly depend on the criminalization of non-citizens. While some criminology
scholarship might suggest such measures announce an increasing governance of migration ‘through crime’, we argue that it is
not simply a case of punitive crime control strategies leaching into migration policies. Not only are foreigners in a far
more vulnerable position to the British citizen, but the restrictions they face play important constitutive roles in newly
invigorated discourses of citizenship and nationalism. In this article, we suggest that criminologists must move on from studies
that emphasize control and criminalization to consider more broadly the implications of basing a politics of national identity
that aspires to ‘solidarity’ and shared values on the forcible exclusion of growing numbers of people.
This article provides a fresh theoretical perspective on the most important development in immigration law today: the convergence of immigration and criminal law. It proposes a unifying theory - membership theory - for why these two areas of law recently have become so connected, and why that convergence is troubling. Membership theory restricts individual rights and privileges to those who are members of a social contract between the government and the people. Membership theory provides decisionmakers with justification for excluding individuals from society, using immigration and criminal law as the means of exclusion. It operates in the intersection between criminal and immigration law to mark an ever-expanding group of outsiders by denying them the privileges that citizens hold, such as the right to vote or to remain in the United States. Membership theory manifests in this new area through certain powers of the sovereign state: the power to punish, and the power to express moral condemnation. This use of membership theory places the law on the edge of a crimmigration crisis. Only the harshest elements of each area of law make their way into the criminalization of immigration law, and the apparatus of the state is used to expel from society those deemed criminally alien. The result is an ever-expanding population of the excluded and alienated. The article begins with a dystopia, narrating a future in which criminal and immigration law have completely merged, and membership theory has resulted in extreme divisions in our society between insiders and outsiders - between the included and the alienated. The rest of the article describes the seeds of that future in the past and present. Part II describes the present confluence of immigration and criminal law. Part III sets out the role of membership theory in those areas in excluding noncitizens and ex-offenders from society. It details the role of sovereign power in drawing and enforcing those lines of exclusion. The article concludes by describing the potential consequences of the convergence of these two areas and the use of membership theory to justify decisions to exclude.
Mods and Rockers, skinheads, video nasties, designer drugs, bogus asylum seeks and hoodies. Every era has its own moral panics. It was Stanley Cohen’s classic account, first published in the early 1970s and regularly revised, that brought the term ‘moral panic’ into widespread discussion. It is an outstanding investigation of the way in which the media and often those in a position of political power define a condition, or group, as a threat to societal values and interests. Fanned by screaming media headlines, Cohen brilliantly demonstrates how this leads to such groups being marginalised and vilified in the popular imagination, inhibiting rational debate about solutions to the social problems such groups represent. Furthermore, he argues that moral panics go even further by identifying the very fault lines of power in society.
Strangers at our door
- Baumanz
- Z.Bauman
Fortress Europe?: The Aegean Sea Frontier and the Strengthening of EU’s External Borders
- Athanasopoulosa
- A.Athanasopoulos
How Europe built fences to keep people out
- G Baczynska
- S Ledwith
Introduction to the 1951 Convention/1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees. UN Audio-Visual Library of International Law
- S Goodwin-Gillg
- G. S.Goodwin-Gill
Protecting refugee Women and girls from violence: A collection of good practices
- M. S.Dionis
Child protection from violence, exploitation and abuse
- Unicef
Reading the crimmigrant other
- L Zedner