 | |||||||
| US Coast Guard Picture |
While ‘boat people’ are often fleeing a situation of
crisis, they share their mode of travel with many types of migrants. Much more
needs to be done to respond to irregular maritime migration in a way which
protects fundamental rights and respects human dignity but the political will for
this appears to be lacking.
[…]
Boat migration is a complex phenomenon, involving the
intersection of several bodies of international law and thorny questions of jurisdiction.
It affects countries of origin, of transit and of destination in all regions of
the world. Despite its prevalence, states have so far failed to demonstrate the
political will to work out an internationally accepted response which would
both respect the sovereign right of states to control their borders and protect
the human rights and human dignity of the boat people. Instead, states
experiment with ad hoc responses, with the balance between protection and
control shifting as a function of domestic and external factors.
