Introduction [Human rights issues in migration and border management]

Abstract

Migration as a social, cultural, political and legal phenomenon has been at the forefront of global debate in the last two decades. ‘Migration as crisis’ is a powerful legal and political narrative that dominates the discussion on the movement of people and ultimately shapes policies and regulations at the EU, national and international levels. In its broadest sense, the concept of migration is strictly intertwined with that of borders. Borders are one of the oldest ways to separate and draw distinctions between different societies. From Roman times to the Congress of Vienna, the idea of drawing and protecting borders between people and societies has been a powerful tool used by law and policymakers. The implications of bordering practices and the very concept of a border are worth exploring: what is a border, how is it produced and how does it regulate the lives of people on one side and the other and movement across it are questions that should be answered through an interdisciplinary approach that borrows, among other things, from anthropological and legal research. Border management is an equally fundamental concept, even more so within supranational organisations like the EU, where twenty-seven Member States share the same external border. Within this border, EU citizens live largely borderless lives, where the movement of people, goods, services and capital is free from traditional limitations, and are caught unaware by the reintroduction of borders, as recent events like Brexit have clearly shown.