Amid the resurgence of boat arrivals of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers to some of the European Union’s (EU) Mediterranean shores, discussions on appropriate responses and levels of responsibility amongst EU Member States have risen to unprecedented levels. Demands for greater cooperation and burden-sharing have remained strong, yet suggestions to reinstate border controls, threats to reduce official immigration quotas, calls to reduce the Schengen agreements, and questions even on the unity of the European Union have proven to be ubiquitous: a patchwork of political debates in which EU Member State responsibilities to monitor and guarantee the rights of those arriving are given far less attention and the clear need to further ‘pool’ the dynamics of sovereignty into new definitions of international responsibility is left ignored.

The principle of state sovereignty forms an integral part of how international relations and thinking have been built in the past. Today, however, the concept seems to be employed all too readily as an argument against the development of needed multilateral migration policies and is rather used as a defensive code word for the desire to protect notions of isolated historic identity, territoriality and property. All too often, the principle of state sovereignty is being invoked as an excuse for not further developing indispensable international tools.

The International Catholic Migration Commission emphasizes the urgent need to further develop the principle of state sovereignty in its international dimension, and to better understand the knock on the door of those who choose or are forced to migrate. This knock is a call for clear international policies and guidelines on how today’s human mobility can be regulated with dignity and common sense—not left to crisis management or futile attempts to simply ‘make it stop’. Political responsibility in these matters can no longer be understood solely according to the traditional sense of state sovereignty, deeply anchored in geographic definitions and limits.

In Europe and in numerous other world regions, rhetoric on migration currently tends to oscillate between national security approaches, feelings of xenophobia, and growing unemployment co-existing with a clear shortage of needed workers. In maintaining an almost artificial separation between issues and possible responses, conflicts and contradictions are only perpetuated, and essential solutions deferred.

Controversy over the recent decision to grant temporary protection to Tunisian boat arrivals, for instance, demonstrates how easily reactive responses anchored in national interests can take priority over humanitarian needs or transnational vision. Reflexes of a humanitarian nature – no matter how important these are - neither solve the underlying issues in the long term, nor necessarily contribute to the better management of arrivals in the short term. On the contrary, the reactions seen across Europe in response to the decision on temporary protection eloquently display diverging national interests and the difficulties of establishing a common, proactive migration policy.

Similarly, the suggestion of one EU member state to reduce both its immigration quota and the number of jobs made available for immigrants contrasts violently with broader economic and demographic realities. Among other things, this approach fails to consider the multiple realities and impacts that are international in nature, particularly the needs, rights and contributions of non-nationals that cannot be ignored or dismissed.

A multiplicity of other issues further proves that state sovereignty no longer begins and ends at national borders (health, finance and nuclear energy offer just three examples), and that decisions made on the domestic level have consequences that generate responsibilities for which enhanced international ‘pooling’ of sovereignty is indispensable.

Fortress-style efforts to control the external borders of the EU are a clear exponent of older dynamics that run contrary to the decision to open the internal frontiers of the EU—a decision that was taken as a deliberate and efficient response to the dissipating historical function of borders in light of new economic and societal realities. The decision then implicitly recognized the need to further develop international responsibilities in function of today’s major trends. Today, migration calls for similar transnational efforts to develop mechanisms that better serve national interests in global phenomena while also accompanying the new mobility with human dignity.

Measures and bilateral agreements aimed at stopping immigration extraterritorially also mirror the older dynamics of narrow national sovereignty. Built on the idea of ‘departure prevention’, these agreements actually displace national responsibility from the country of arrival to countries of origin or transit—or even to air and sea carriers. National responsibilities have thereby been subcontracted out as a paid service to be provided by other nations. In considering the evidence, these measures have never proved to provide the solution for better-managed mobility; they have resulted instead in reduced respect for human dignity, increased forms of irregular migration and modern slavery and in a diminished international protection status.

All of this raises fundamental questions on how policies regarding transnational issues are prepared, legislated and monitored. Whereas the global debate on migration continues to be centred far too much on a jigsaw puzzle of disparate and insufficiently cohesive answers that are suggested and defined by numerous nations, international migration demands well-developed, future-oriented policies that unite nations in new forms of multilaterally-shared responsibility.

Labour is undoubtedly one of the most important of these societal issues, and a case-in-point example of how attempts to develop solutions at the national level alone are no longer adequate. An alternative approach to the relationship between the needs of workers and labour markets on both regional and global levels offers fertile space for solutions to many of today’s migration challenges: among these, better perspectives on integration, community life and economic realities. Moreover, labour is key to developing the longer-term, sustainable and international strategies needed to address the issues of international protection, human mobility and security. In this direction, logics aiming at integrated and holistic results do not reduce the value of sovereignty, but rather lift its focus and responsibilities to the level of today’s global challenges.

As we look to the road before us, the global future looks less like an expanded village and much more like a world of incessant changes, connections and global routings. Humanity has entered into a new age of mobility and national policies will need to further adapt in order to support and develop complementary international vision and solutions. Within all of this, and in line with these new global challenges, the principle of sovereignty must be developed to take on greater levels of international responsibility. No longer is it a mere territorial issue; it is also a shared responsibility, contributing to the future of all of mankind.

Johan KETELERS
Secretary General of the International Catholic Migration Commission
Geneva

Pooling sovereignty into new definitions of international responsibility (300.15 KB)