International Migration, Border Controls and Human Rights: Assessing the Relevance of a Right to Mobility

Introduction

Is it possible to envisage a right to mobility? According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 13-2), «Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.» But if the right to emigrate is acknowledged, what about the corresponding right to immigrate? This question is of particular relevance because contemporary migration policies are increasingly characterized by a restrictive spirit that makes international mobility problematic. While skilled workers circulate quite easily, those who do not belong to this elite have little access to migration opportunities, at least within a legal framework. In the meantime, globalization has increased the mobility of capital, information, goods and even services, thus making the non-liberalization of human mobility the exception rather than the rule.

These diverging patterns in international mobility take place in a context characterized by the contestation of this order by irregular migration flows and by receiving states’ attempts to stop them. This article argues that this dynamic leads to important human rights challenges that are yet to be fully acknowledged. It suggests that a possible rights-based answer to the challenges of migration lies in the elaboration of a right to mobility, and it examines some of the implications of this approach, including its relationship to issues such as world justice, social cohesion, economic wealth, security, and migration governance.

Journal of Borderlands Studies, 2006, Vol. 21. no. 1

Download at PDF format

International Migration, Border Controls and Human Rights