Immigration, refugees and the Human Rights

Schedule

Wednesday, July 6th, from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m.
3744, Jean-Brillant street
Room: DRI

Speaker

Idil Atak is a postdoctoral researcher at the McGill Centre for Human Rights & Legal Pluralism. She holds a doctoral degree in international law from Université de Montréal. A recipient of the SSHRC postdoctoral fellowship, she is also a research associate at Hans & Tamar Oppenheimer Chair in Public International Law and UQAM’s Chaire de recherche en immigration, ethnicité et citoyenneté. She worked for the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a legal expert in Ankara, then in Strasbourg as a deputy to the Permanent Representative of Turkey to the Council of Europe.

Summary

Since 1980s, the European Union is increasingly involved in the treatment of foreigners through the establishment of an area of freedom, security and justice. The Europeanization has a negative impact on forced migrants’ human rights as it reinforces existing preventive and deterrent measures against unwanted foreigners. It also establishes common norms and cooperation mecanisms with a view to optimizing States’ control over irregular migration. A similar trend can be observed in North America, where the USA and Canada increasingly cooperate to stem unwanted migration. In Canada, the recent reform of the immigration and asylum system is part of the increasing securitization of the refugee protection system. The presentation adopts a comparative approach in order to underline how the securitization of migration and asylum erects new legal border walls against forced migrants, including asylum seekers.

Mandatory readings

 United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Overcoming barriers: Human mobility and development, Human Development Report 2009, pp. 9-51
 François Crépeau, Delphine Nakache and Idil Atak, International Migration: Security Concerns and Human Rights Standards, Transcultural Psychiatry, September 2007