Human Rights, Migration, and Social Conflict: Towards a Decolonized Global Justice

Social conflict involving migrants, which includes terrorism, migrant trafficking and kidnappings, and riots and the occupation of public places, is a direct result of the systematic refusal of receiving countries to recognize that migrants have universal human rights. Analysis of this causal relationship indicates that certain elements of migration policy in Europe and North America-such as the securitization of border controls and development cooperation policies, the use of foreigner internment camps as part of a tougher asylum policy, the criminalization of irregular migration, and social exclusion resulting from widespread discrimination-lead to violent social conflict. These violent conflicts of potentially global impact could be prevented were countries that receive migrants to adopt a system of justice-a decolonized global justice-that recognizes the human rights of migrants.