Live From MSU: International Norms in Immigration Law
Fullerton, Gilman, Ramji-Nogales, Kanstroom, Family
Our last plenary panel of the today centered on international norms in immigration law.
We started with rapid-fire background material from the panelists.
Jaya Ramji-Nogales (Temple) spoke about international norms and immigration law. She informed us about the four sources of international law: (i) treaties, (ii) customary international law, (iii) general principles of law that recognized by “civilized nations”, and (iv) the teachings of the most highly qualified folks on the law (us!). She also talked about the fields of international law that are relevant to migration – principally human rights law, labor law, criminal law.
Maryellen Fullerton (Brooklyn) talked about the institutions entities involved making international law relating to migration: The UN (which includes the following bodies working on migration: UNHCR, Global Form on Migration and Development, Global Migration Group, ILO, ILC), UN treaty bodies, international courts, regional human rights institutions, and NGOs.
Dan Kanstroom (BC) noted that the United States had a role in the architecture of the international legal system, yet it doesn’t really play a positive role in creating international law itself, particular in the human rights aspects of immigration norms.
Denise Gilman (UT) spoke about enforcing international norms. In particular, she talked about using fora like the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to engage the U.S. government and to challenge its immigration practices, for example in regard to family detention, under international law. She also spoke about using international laws as pressure points in litigation.
Dan then returned to stage to talk about international law regarding the expulsion or deportation of noncitizens. There is little explicit international law in this area. The void has allowed the established U.S. system of deportation to be “exported around the world,” which Kanstroom sees as a bad thing. He wants progressive international norms put into place. Enter the UN’s draft articles on the expulsion of aliens and his own declaration of expelled and deported persons, which he walked us through identifying highlights.
Jaya offered thoughts on the “refugee crisis” and international law. The quotes are hers. She questions whether there is, in fact, a crisis. And whether it’s about refugees at all. What she does see is a systemic failure of international migration law to address three critical issues: safe transit, entry, and the right to remain. She wants to see a comprehensive approach to tackle these issues.
Denise emphasized the value of discussing international law in the immigration context, even after acknowledging the enforcability issues and problems with substantive international norms themselves already identified by Dan and Jaya. She sees international law as having the potential to pull us out of the “quagmire” of domestic immigration law by offering new perspectives.
Maryellen grabbed the baton to bring this panel to a close. She focused on her book The Global Reach of European Refugee Law (Cambridge Univ. Press 2013), which addresses the extent to which EU asylum norms have influenced the law and practice of states around the world (“norm diffusion”).
A shout out to Jill Family (Widener) for excellent moderating.
-KitJ