Rethinking Rightlessness : the “Right to Have Rights” and the EU-Turkey Statement
Osso, Berfin Nur (2019)
Osso, Berfin Nur
2019
Johtamisen ja talouden tiedekunta - Faculty of Management and Business
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Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2019-05-09
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-201905151665
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-201905151665
Tiivistelmä
The migration “crisis” in 2015, the largest human displacement since the end of World War II, made people become aware of the existence of a “right to have rights” and a right to belong to some kind of organized community once again when the refugee who had been forced to flee his or her country of origin lost and could not regain or enjoy these rights elsewhere. This has also demonstrated that human rights indeed need a prerequisite right to be more than citizenship rights: that is the “right to have rights,” which must be guaranteed by humanity itself. Following the summer of migration in 2015, the EU and Turkey came to a deal on 18 March 2016, which is officially known as the EU-Turkey Statement. The implementation of the Statement raised concerns especially over the human rights violations it entails vis-à-vis the migrants who are returned from the Greek islands to Turkey or who are expelled from the EU territory at the very Greek-Turkish border. However, this study argues that rather than “merely” depriving migrants of certain set of rights enshrined in international and regional human rights instruments, the EU-Turkey Statement deprives them of a more fundamental “right to have rights” – which also puts other rights in jeopardy.
Despite the developments in international law since Hannah Arendt coined the “right to have rights” in The Origins of Totalitarianism in 1951, the ever-existing gaps in international law still create an area of maneuver for states and incentivize them to engage in the externalization of migration management. From the outset, the externalization of migration management has been on the EU agenda and embedded in the very core of the Common European Asylum System. The adoption of the EU-Turkey Statement, as well as its implementation, too, have resulted from the EU’s rationale to prevent the “irregular” migrants from reaching the EU territory and to divert the burden of migration management and of protection to non-EU third countries. In fact, the EU-Turkey Statement can be considered the utmost specimen of the EU’s efforts to externalize the management of migration. Furthermore, this thesis considers the EU-Turkey Statement not as one single statement, but a bundle of commitments, measures and practices. Therefore, it assesses the EU-Turkey Statement with the relevant practices, aspects and developments – as the gravity of human rights issues that asylum seekers and refugees encounter at the Greek-Turkish border, in Turkey and on the Greek islands is closely connected with the Statement and the preceding undertakings of the parties.
Among the formal and informal instruments of the externalization of migration management, this thesis scrutinizes in the context of the EU-Turkey Statement the concept of “safe third country,” readmission agreements, and interception of migrants at maritime and land borders. Drawing upon the legal dogmatic method, the thesis first analyzes the impact of these three instruments on the rights of asylum seekers and refugees on the Greek islands, at the Greek-Turkish border, and in Turkey. Second, against the backdrop of the Arendtian “right to have rights,” it argues that the problem today is in fact access to a “right to have rights.” Indeed, the refugee who is excluded due to the implementation of the EU-Turkey Statement from the state territory (at the border), from the general application of law (by way of the law) and from the space of appearance (in the polis) is prevented from accessing safe soils, to asylum (procedures) or a durable juridico-politico status, and to a politically organized community for the claim and enjoyment of human rights.
Despite the developments in international law since Hannah Arendt coined the “right to have rights” in The Origins of Totalitarianism in 1951, the ever-existing gaps in international law still create an area of maneuver for states and incentivize them to engage in the externalization of migration management. From the outset, the externalization of migration management has been on the EU agenda and embedded in the very core of the Common European Asylum System. The adoption of the EU-Turkey Statement, as well as its implementation, too, have resulted from the EU’s rationale to prevent the “irregular” migrants from reaching the EU territory and to divert the burden of migration management and of protection to non-EU third countries. In fact, the EU-Turkey Statement can be considered the utmost specimen of the EU’s efforts to externalize the management of migration. Furthermore, this thesis considers the EU-Turkey Statement not as one single statement, but a bundle of commitments, measures and practices. Therefore, it assesses the EU-Turkey Statement with the relevant practices, aspects and developments – as the gravity of human rights issues that asylum seekers and refugees encounter at the Greek-Turkish border, in Turkey and on the Greek islands is closely connected with the Statement and the preceding undertakings of the parties.
Among the formal and informal instruments of the externalization of migration management, this thesis scrutinizes in the context of the EU-Turkey Statement the concept of “safe third country,” readmission agreements, and interception of migrants at maritime and land borders. Drawing upon the legal dogmatic method, the thesis first analyzes the impact of these three instruments on the rights of asylum seekers and refugees on the Greek islands, at the Greek-Turkish border, and in Turkey. Second, against the backdrop of the Arendtian “right to have rights,” it argues that the problem today is in fact access to a “right to have rights.” Indeed, the refugee who is excluded due to the implementation of the EU-Turkey Statement from the state territory (at the border), from the general application of law (by way of the law) and from the space of appearance (in the polis) is prevented from accessing safe soils, to asylum (procedures) or a durable juridico-politico status, and to a politically organized community for the claim and enjoyment of human rights.
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