International Migrants’ Rights in the UK from the 1998 Human Rights Act to the Big Society Concept

• Main Author: Catherine Puzzo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Maison de la Recherche en Sciences Humaines 2014-11-01
• Series: Revue LISA
• Subjects: immigration; migrants; asylum; law; United Kingdom
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/lisa/6901

Since the mid-1990s the policies and the legal and regulatory instruments for refugees and asylum seekers have maintained particular groups of migrants in a state of limbo with fewer rights than the rest of the British population. The enforcement of restrictive policies has caused widespread social exclusion and destitution amongst these migrants. This is all the more paradoxical since the Labour and the current coalition administrations have made the integration of their foreign population a key dimension of their migration agenda. This paper intends to review the path successive governments, including the current one, have taken to uphold human rights commitments to its foreign population notably with the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights while, on the other hand, pursuing increasingly restrictive policies which have left these non-nationals in a precarious situation, thereby undermining their chances of integrating successfully.