Migration, law, democracy: identifiyng where the risk is

Abstract

- This paper focuses on migration, law and democracy in order to identify where risk lies. The author concentrates on studying a recent case, the Directive on the Return of so-called illegal immigrants (sans papiers) approved by the European Parliament on 18 June 2008. The usual point of view, that of the dominant discourse, maintains that today's migratory movements constitute one of the structural factors that justify the definition of our societies as the "Risk Society". According to this point of view, the migratory flows entail a risk for social cohesion and even a destabilising potential for both democracy and the rule of law. The risk is illustrated by the menacing image of invasion threatening at our doors, hence the classical argument of the "demographic bomb" as the resource of poor countries. The author's thesis sustains that it is precisely our responses, in the form of migratory policy tools, that constitute a risk factor. Some of these tools, including this Directive, have become destabilising elements of the rules of the game and, moreover, of the values of the rule of law and of democracy.