DOCUMENTS AND PUBLICATIONS
An outsider looking in, an insider looking out: Irish and EC asylum policy, paper presented at an IEA/TrXXf3caire seminar on 5 March 1993, by Andy Storey. 34 p., available at: TrXXf3caire, 169 Booterstown Av.,Co. Dublin, Ireland.
The paper deals with the following questions: what would Irish asylum policy be if Ireland was not an EC member, and what difference has Ireland's membership made to overall EC policy? The author outlines some of the background to current EC and Irish asylum policy and concludes with a discussion of what policies Ireland, operating within EC rules, could unilaterally implement in this area, and what policies Ireland could press to have adopted at EC level.
The CSCE and the protection of the rights of migrants, refugees and minorities, by Urban Gibson and Jan Niessen, Churches Committee for Migrants in Europe (CCME), Briefing Paper No.11, March 1993, 24 p.; CCME, 174, rue Joseph II, B-1040 Brussels, Tel:+32/2 2302011, Fax:+32/2 2311413.
Although it is a well known fact that the cooperation between the participating states in the field of human rights was one of the major issues in the CSCE process (Helsinki Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe), it is less known to what extent this cooperation includes the protection of the rights of migrant workers, refugees and minorities. Equally, these groups are often unaware of the possible protection the CSCE can offer them.
This briefing paper gives an introduction to the CSCE and its role in protecting the rights of these groups. The first chapter is a general introduction to the Helsinki process. It gives an insight into the origin, working principles and supervisory mechanisms of the CSCE. In the second chapter the relevant and most important paragraphs of the Helsinki Agreements for the issues addressed in this paper are presented. In the third chapter some conclusions are drawn as to the significance of the CSCE process as a forum for intergovernmental cooperation alongside other international organisations and institutions.
The impact of Western European border policies on the control of "refugees" in Eastern and Central Europe, by Mike King, January 1993, published in New Community 19(2): p.183-199. Mike King is Lecturer in Public Order at the CSPO, University of Leicester.
Much of the contemporary debate on Western European exclusionary border policies focuses on the nature of that exclusion, rather than the impact such policies are likely to have on border controls of other migrant receiving or producing states. This article addresses some of the issues of Western European border control harmonisation in the context of Eastern and Central Europe, and Hungary in particular. It suggests that the concept of "Fortress Europe" needs some refinement as harmonisation of controls is progressively taking place on different levels, from the Schengen group of "inner-Europe", to the EEA "greater inner-Europe", with perhaps the Visegràd group waiting in the wings. What is clear is that the present policies and exclusionary practices, on whatever level, directed against "refugees", are primarily framed within a notion of threat and necessary compensation for potential freedoms. So long as this persists, policies of control will per se outweigh prevention. What we have in Eastern and Central Europe in terms of immediate impact of policies from the West is a shifting of the border Eastwards.
Towards federalism? Policing the borders of a "new" Europe, by Mike King, 25 p., Discussion Papers in federal Studies, CSPO, Department of Politics, University of Leicester, The Friars, 154 Upper New Walk, Leicester LE1 7QA, UK. Tel:+44/533 522489, Fax:+44/533 523944.
The paper concentrates especially on change within European Border Control policies and police cooperation. On the one hand the author suggests that there are signs of increasing convergence between forms of policing in Europe as a whole and more specifically, an increasing trend towards policing system cooperation and integration, both horizontally and vertically. This is taking place together with a corresponding formalisation of the informal, in terms of practices which have been established already through bi- and multi-lateral cross-border control and police cooperation agreements between countries. On the other hand, there is a trend towards the "layering" of exclusionary borders, from the internal to the external "buffer zones". Further, we posit an enhancement in the form of control involving networking, pro-active policing and intensification of penetration. These trends can only be understood in the context of being "necessary compensatory measures" to counteract an all-embracing notion of threat arising from an amalgam of terrorism, organised crime, drugs, clandestine immigration and asylum. The author questions the reality of that threat.
Commentaire des résolutions et conclusions adoptées par le Conseil Européen d'Edimbourg sur les pays où il n'existe pas de risques sérieux de pérsecution, les pays tiers d'accueil et les demandes d'asile manifestement infondées, by Professor Francois Julien-Laferrière, Faculty of Law, University of Limoges, France, 10 p., French, publ. in Documentation-Réfugiés, No 205-206, 17.12.92/5.1.93.
The author critically comments the conclusions of the London conference of EC-Immigration Ministers on 30 November 1992 in the field of asylum policy, as adopted by the European Council of Edinburg. He suggests that these principles express the way of thinking of the various European governments with regard to asylum and mostly but transcribe into written documents practices that have already been introduced by police and political authorities without a legal basis.
Although the resolutions, conclusions and recommendations adopted in London and Edinburg do not provide a legal basis for the decisions that will be taken in carrying out the rules they set out, their moral and political impact is obvious, not least because they have been endorsed by both the EC-immigration ministers and the EC-heads of the states. This can but comfort public administrations throughout Europe in pursuing the policies they established in the last years.