RightsWatch
Breaking Down Borders
By Zahra Sethna, for the Chronicle
 | | UN Photo |
Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares that everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each State, and the right to “leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country”. This means that all people should be able to move around as they please.
Reality tells a different tale, however. Restrictions and limitations are placed on how, where and why people can move within and between countries. In addition to legal and governmental restrictions, there are financial and cultural limitations that prevent people from travelling freely. They often leave their homes unwillingly or are forced to do so by unbearable conditions, such as war, poverty, unemployment, forced migration or persecution.
Despite the ideals of Article 13, not all people are able to leave their own country or legally enter another. Some should be and are considered refugees, while others are considered immigrants or “illegals”. The 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees clearly spells out who is to be considered a refugee, and accords specific rights and protection to them. Economic migrants - those “leaving their country willingly to seek a better life” elsewhere - and internally displaced people are not specifically protected under the Convention.
Asylum-seekers use texts such as the Universal Declaration of Human rights as defence in their claims, but are often “duly rejected”, according to Robert Barsky, founder of the Article Thirteen Centre at the University of Quebec at Montreal (UQAM).
“The right to move around isn’t obvious, as it might be for birds, fish or animals; it is regulated by the State”, said Mr. Barsky, whose interest in the plight of refugees began when, as a doctoral student in Montreal, he worked as a transcriber for refugee hearings, and who is currently a visiting professor of literature at Yale University. “I have for a long time been interested in the relationship between international organs of assistance like the United Nations and UNHCR, and all of these wonderful treaties that they produce, and concrete actions which occur in the local population”, he said.
The Centre’s first event was a recent conference on migration and border studies held at UQAM. Participants from South Africa, the Netherlands, the United States, Canada, Rwanda, Burundi and other countries came together to discuss concepts such as “The Right to Return in the Aftermath of the Ethiopian/Eritrean War”, “Borderline Security” and “Migration Law and Inequality”.
Discussion began with Mr. Barsky’s opening statement, in which he introduced the concept of a borderless society. “I thought to use as a starting point the idea of open borders - forget about whether or not it’s possible tomorrow, forget about the role that the State plays, forget about the status quo”, he explained. “Begin with that assumption - people move around, they’ve always moved around, it’s normal to move around.” It is, Mr. Barsky admitted, a utopian view of things, but he believed it to be a more interesting starting point than simply outlining the problem and discussing possible solutions.
 | A segregated beach in South Africa, 1982 (UN Photo) |
Speakers at the conference included such notable names as Julius Grey, a well-known Canadian constitutional and human rights lawyer, who spoke on the problems inherent in the definition of refugee status; Debbie Anker, a Harvard professor, on refugees, gender and human rights; and Thomas Spijkeboer, a law professor from Amsterdam, on the effects of migration on the labour market and family structure in the Netherlands.
With regard to the current definition of a refugee - a person who is outside the country of his nationality owing to a “well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion” - Mr. Grey pointed out that this leaves out many important cases and that other grounds should be added, such as a fear of death upon returning home. “The right to life means not being sent to your death”, he said, presenting the argument that if a person seeking asylum in Canada or the United States will, when deported, face certain death either from hunger, lack of access to medical treatment such as HIV therapies, or under certain circumstances capital punishment, then that person should be considered for refugee status. “If you’re going to send someone to die somewhere, then it’s unconscionable.”
After several presentations sympathetic to the troubles facing refugees, a debate was sparked when Howard Foster, a Chicago lawyer, offered what he called a “dissenting opinion”.
He introduced the notion that immigration, at least to the United States, should be severely limited and more strictly enforced. It was not in their own interests, he said, for immigrants to come to the United States, where they would be exploited as cheap labour and where very often “the conditions they end up living in are no better than what they’re fleeing from”.
A better approach, Mr. Foster suggested, would be to admit migrants and refugees, “only if they can fit into the American mainstream”. Judgements should be based on education level and employability at good wages. The current immigration system, he argued, has a detrimental economic effect on the entire country, lowering the wage structure for everyone.
Since September 11, there has been much discussion of border security, tightened immigration laws and “threats” to American security. Many people, including those with legislative power, are in favour of ideas such as those Mr. Foster suggested, or even graver and more severe restrictions.
Ironically, September 11 was the day Mr. Barsky sent out invitations to participants of this conference and first heard the tragic news on his way from the post office. “It seemed to me”, he said, “that the urgency was all the greater. As soon as it happened, I thought this is going to be so catastrophic for the movement of peoples.”
In his opinion, talk about tightening border control makes no sense. “If you’ve got an American Express card and a passport, you can more or less go wherever you feel like. But [governments] tighten up the border … that’s clearly untrue. You’re not tightening up the border. What you’re saying is, ‘we’re going to apparently limit the flow and control the flow better’, but the reality is that you’re going to continue to allow people who are rich to come into the country.”
The conference did not arrive at any conclusions on the issue of borders, but did open up for discussion whether the existing structures do enough to protect the rights and interests of all people and whether the ideals put forward in Article 13 can stand up in the context of the modern world.
Links:
Article Thirteen Centre
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
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