Migrants have human rights too! Critical perspectives on the Strasbourg case law.

After the outbreak of the civil war in March 2011, an estimated 11 million Syrians  fled their homes. By 2015, 13.5 million were in need of humanitarian assistance within the country. Among those escaping the conflict, the majority sought refuge in neighbouring countries or within Syria itself. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 4.8 million fled to Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq, and 6.6 million were internally displaced within Syria. Meanwhile about one million requested asylum to Europe. Research by scholar Professor Marie-Bénédicte Dembour, considered why Europe needed to find a systematic, just and equitable method of distributing displaced populations. 

The publication which Dembour brought out in February 2015, When Humans Become Migrants (Oxford University Press) was the result of a long-term study, including a key Leverhulme fellowship between 2009-2012 which enabled her to pursue her research into migrants’ rights in a project entitled: Migrants have human rights too! Critical perspectives on the Strasbourg case law.

Dembour had studied and advocated for migrants’ rights extensively for many years, exploring conceptual critiques of human rights and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights.

She had published widely in this field, most prominently a monograph entitled Who Believes in Human Rights? Reflections on the European Convention (2006) and during the fellowship would release an influential article 'What are human rights? Four schools of thought' which appeared in Human Rights Quarterly (2010). By introducing new, theoretical mapping of human rights scholarship, Dembour has managed to reframe approaches and debate within the field.

With this research project, Dembour considered whether the European Court of Human Rights has struck the right balance when it comes to protecting the human rights of migrants.

The objectives of this research project were to:

> examine whether the European Court of Human Rights is striking the right balance when it comes to protecting the human rights of migrants
> explore the extent to which the treatment of migrants is one of the most challenging issues that human rights, as a political philosophy, faces today
> compare the treatment that claims lodged by migrants receive at the European Court of Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights
> improve understanding and disseminate findings about migrant rights for students, scholars, non-governmental organisations and government legal advisers and policymakers.

Research findings were included in Professor Dembour’s book, When Humans Become Migrants 2015 and were disseminated to a wider public through her blog, which looked at specific elements in detail.

Professor Dembour’s book compared the treatment that claims lodged by migrants receive at the European Court of Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

One of the key findings of the book is that the European Court of Human Rights treats migrants as ‘aliens’ first and human beings second. By contrast, Dembour argues that the Inter-American Court of Human Rights takes a fundamentally more human rights-driven approach to this issue.

Professor Marie-Bénédicte Dembour won the Best Publication Prize (2016) from the Odysseus Academic Network for this monograph, a prize which recognises outstanding academic research contributions to the field of European Immigration and Asylum Law.

Publications during and following the fellowship included:

Dembour, M-B. (2015) When Humans Become Migrants: Study of the European Court of Human Rights with an Inter-American Counterpoint. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Dembour, M-B. and Kelly, T. (Eds.) (2011) Are Human Rights for Migrants? Critical Reflections on the Status of Illegal Migrants in Europe and the United States. London, Routledge.

Dembour, M-B. (2010) 'What are human rights? Four schools of thought' Human Rights Quarterly, pp. 1-20.