People Movement: Intro

Question 1

1: intro?

Answer 1

Debates over people movement center on moral obligations to help distant foreigners over one’s own national interest, often presented in the form of border security.

Question 2

2: Globalisation?

Answer 2

1. Migration, internal and external, has always played a role in human history. However, at the start of the 21st century, it has become an increasingly pressing issue for the international community as a result of globalisation, which has both facilitated the movement of people and awoken the consciousness of domestic populations to this ‘problem’.

• Migration, regardless of whether it is as a result of economic interest or natural or man-made disaster, is an issue which few states have the luxury of disregarding.

2. Globalization has facilitated people movement, both illegal and legal, and it has become a major political issue I the 21st century as movements come close to record levels set in the 19th century.

The number of migrants worldwide jumped from 155m in 1990 to 191m in 2005 and to 214m in 2011; it was estimated that as of 2005, 191m were living outside the states of their birth, or 1 in 35 people.

Question 3

3. Migration Generally, MOTIVATIONS and State?

Answer 3

3. Most migrants leave seeking a better life and states are under no obligation to provide asylum to such economic migrants.

Although an outcome not solely caused by these groups, people-trafficking has become an industry worth an estimated $7b to 12b a year, making it the third most profitable illicit industry in the world.

• As a result of this and other pressures, states are increasingly protective of their sovereignty and who can enter their territorial boundaries.

Question 4

4. Benefits of Migration

Answer 4

Positives: Migration has in itself many positives: increasing cultural diversity, bringing much-needed skills to the state and ultimately boosting economic growth.

EU GDP will be boosted by 0.28% as a result of migration from member states that joined in 2004.

• In the US, immigration is a solution to an ageing population.
• The home states of migrants also benefit as a result of remittances sent home by workers; estimated in 2005 to total $232b (of which $167b went to developing states).

Question 5

5. Negatives of Migration?

Answer 5

Negatives: However there are many costs associated with migrants. Illegal immigrants exacerbate demands for state welfare. There are also concerns that migrants depress the real wages of domestic workers and increase unemployment.

• Furthermore, the movement of skilled persons can depress the economic and social conditions within origin states. Also, increases in social tensions are observed.

Question 6

6. Migration

(Refugees)?

(Asylum Seekers)?

Answer 6

Refugees
The most vulnerable group of migrants are refugees. The 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees defines refugees as ‘individuals who are outside the country of their nationality, owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.’

Refugees require the protection of a foreign state and the principle of non-refoulement means that a state cannot expel or return a refugee.

1. Asylum seekers are those who have applied or have not yet applied for refugee status to a state, but the application ha yet to be recognised.
2. Despite media reports that suggest otherwise, only 10% of asylum-seeker claims are made in Industrialised Western states. At the start of 2006 there were nearly 21m refugees worldwide.

Question 7

7. Refugees

Conditions affecting?

Answer 7

The presence of refugees is unlikely to change any time soon as a result of a number of factors:

i) The conditions that generate refugees, such as rapid population growth, inequality and war, are unlikely to disappear.
ii) The ongoing concern over refugees has seen states collectively tighten their refugee laws, thus the pool of prospective states declines as no one state wants to be seen to be more favourable to asylum-seekers than another.

It is estimated that 40% of the world’s states have implemented policies to reduce the level of immigration.

iii) Increasing ‘asylum fatigue’ has created a situation in which refugees are denied refuge by states, confusing them with illegal economic migrants.