Abstract
This chapter aims to assess the impact of migration on human rights. My hypothesis is that migration tends to draw human rights closer to humanitarian law. What I want to analyse is why and how terms from international humanitarian law are transferred into human rights law when dealing with migration in contemporary French and European law. I will, therefore, underline the way human rights are undermined by European states in order to lessen their obligations towards migrants, and how this strategy changes the very definition of the subject of human rights, by shifting from freedom and universality to vulnerability and exception as well as by focusing on the migrant’s passive body instead of allowing him or her to act as a political being.
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Notes
- 1.
Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field, Geneva, adopted on 22 August 1864.
- 2.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, proclaimed on 10 December 1948. See also the two 1966 Covenants (International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights).
- 3.
Such as the European Convention of Human Rights, the American Convention on Human Rights, the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the Asian Human Rights Charter, and the Arab Charter on Human rights, although their content, scope and legal coercive force are different.
- 4.
See especially the four 1949 Geneva Conventions: The Geneva Convention (I) on Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field; the Geneva Convention (II) on Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked of Armed Forces at Sea; the Geneva Convention (III) on Prisoners of War; and the Geneva Convention (IV) on Civilians.
- 5.
Such as the different ad hoc Tribunals and the International Criminal Court.
- 6.
The European Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the African Court of Justice and Human Rights.
- 7.
Nine committees monitoring the implementation of different conventions related to human rights, including the UN Human Rights Committee.
- 8.
‘No derogation from articles 6 [right to life], 7 [prohibition of torture and degrading treatments], 8 (paragraphs 1 and 2) [prohibition of slavery and servitude], 11 [prohibition of imprisonment “merely on the ground of inability to fulfil a contractual obligation”], 15 [principle of the legality of criminal offences and penalties], 16 [right to legal personality] and 18 [right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion] may be made under this provision’.
- 9.
‘In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each Party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following provisions:
(1) Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed “hors de combat” by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.
To this end, the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:
(a) violence to life and person, in particular, murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;
(b) taking of hostages;
(c) outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment;
(d) the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.
(2) The wounded and sick shall be collected and cared for.
An impartial humanitarian body, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, may offer its services to the Parties to the conflict.
The Parties to the conflict should further endeavour to bring into force, by means of special agreements, all or part of the other provisions of the present Convention.
The application of the preceding provisions shall not affect the legal status of the Parties to the conflict’.
- 10.
UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, article 4, 3: ‘Any State Party to the present Covenant availing itself of the right of derogation shall immediately inform the other States Parties to the present Covenant, through the intermediary of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, of the provisions from which it has derogated and of the reasons by which it was actuated. A further communication shall be made, through the same intermediary, on the date on which it terminates such derogation’.
- 11.
- 12.
This does not mean that humanitarian law involves no path for appeal (the existence of the ad hoc Tribunals and the International Criminal Courts tends to prove the contrary); what I mean here is that qualifying migrants’ rights in humanitarian terms is a way to weaken their legal coercive force by presenting them as freely granted by the administration. What I comment upon in the following examples is thus the use of the term ‘humanitarian’, not of some characteristics of humanitarian law, as I did in the first part.
- 13.
‘La carte de séjour temporaire mentionnée à l’article L. 313-11 ou la carte de séjour temporaire mentionnée au 1° de l’article L. 313-10 sur le fondement du troisième alinéa de cet article peut être délivrée, sauf si sa présence constitue une menace pour l’ordre public, à l’étranger ne vivant pas en état de polygamie dont l’admission au séjour répond à des considérations humanitaires ou se justifie au regard des motifs exceptionnels qu’il fait valoir, sans que soit opposable la condition prévue à l’article L. 311-7’.
- 14.
‘En outre, toute personne qui, ne résidant pas en France, est présente sur le territoire français, et dont l’état de santé le justifie, peut, par décision individuelle prise par le ministre chargé de l’action sociale, bénéficier de l’aide médicale de l’État dans les conditions prévues par l’article L. 252-1. Dans ce cas, la prise en charge des dépenses mentionnées à l’article L. 251-2 peut être partielle’.
- 15.
The key point is that the doctors responsible for examining the applications have been transferred from the Ministry of Health to the Ministry of the Interior.
- 16.
On that matter, the May 2016 ‘Proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing the criteria and mechanisms for determining the Member State responsible for examining an application for international protection lodged in one of the Member States by a third-country national or a stateless person (recast)’ makes no fundamental change (although the discretionary clause is narrowed, the use of humanitarian grounds remains possible).
- 17.
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/ALL/?uri=celex%3A32013R0604, §17. For an analysis of the Dublin III system, see in particular Chetail et al. (2016: 151) as far as this humanitarian clause is concerned.
- 18.
CJEU, Grand Chamber, 6 November 2012, K. v. Bundesasylamt, case C-245/11.
- 19.
The current regulation is more protective on that matter (partly thanks to the K. versus Bundesasylamt case): see the articles 8–11 of the Dublin III Regulation.
- 20.
Regulation (EC) No 810/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 July 2009 establishing a Community Code on Visas (Visa Code).
- 21.
X and X versus Belgium, ECJ, 7 March 2017, ECLI:EU:C:2017:173.
- 22.
Directive 2013/33/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013 laying down standards for the reception of applicants for international protection, chapter IV, article 21.
- 23.
According to the French institution (OFII) responsible for the accommodation of asylum seekers, there are currently 22,493 accommodation places, to be compared to the 61,903 asylum applications in 2015.
- 24.
According to the reception conditions directive (2013/33/EU), article 18, ‘Where housing is provided in kind, it should take one or a combination of the following forms:
(a) premises used for the purpose of housing applicants during the examination of an application for international protection made at the border or in transit zones.
(b) accommodation centres which guarantee an adequate standard of living;
(a) private houses, flats, hotels or other premises adapted for housing applicants.’.
So, housing may be provided through financial allowances, but, according to article 17, they ‘shall be determined on the basis of the level(s) established by the Member State concerned either by law or by the practice to ensure adequate standards of living for nationals’.
- 25.
1951 Geneva Convention relating to the status of refugees.
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de Vulpillières, C. (2020). From a Right-Based Approach to a Humanitarian Approach: In What Way Does Migration Impact Human Rights?. In: Jacobsen, M., Berhanu Gebre, E., Župarić-Iljić, D. (eds) Cosmopolitanism, Migration and Universal Human Rights. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50645-2_11
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