Abstract
ABSTRACTThe increased efforts of democratic states to enforce immigration control and deportations have sparked heated public debates about the rights of non-citizen children to be granted asylum. Local communities, anti-deportation movements, and children themselves have rejected the justifications provided by state authorities and have mobilized claims in the public sphere for the rights of non-citizen children to stay. To date, scholars have primarily analysed normative issues about the rights of non-citizen children with departure in legal positive rights as enshrined in domestic and international law; however, scholars have paid less attention to political theoretical aspects of the issue. This article takes its point of departure from claims for non-citizen children’s right to stay as formulated in the public sphere and uses discourse ethics to theorize in what ways these claims challenge state power and contemporary laws on asylum. In addition, this article contributes to the scholarly debates about the pressing global political issue of child migration and the political theory of human rights for children. Building on Seyla Benhabib’s concepts reciprocity and democratic iterations, this article develops a discourse theoretical approach that offers an alternative framework to a legalistic approach for the normative analysis of the rights of non-citizen children.
Highlights
When the brothers Hakob, 13, and Hasmik, 14, had lived in Sweden for 5 years, their applications for residence were rejected, and they were to be deported to Armenia (Dagens Nyheter March 8, 2007, my translation)
I started this article from the observation that in the wake of denials of residence permits to non-citizen children by states of the global north, local communities, anti-deportation campaigns, and children themselves have been engaged in political mobilization and public contestations of state authorities
While the most common response by scholars engaged with the rights of non-citizen children have been to use international treaties such as the UNCRC or the ECHR as analytical framework, I propose that discourse ethics and the concepts of reciprocity and democratic iterations can provide a productive analytical framework and respond to some of the challenges that the controversies reveal and to enhance democratic legitimacy
Summary
When the brothers Hakob, 13, and Hasmik, 14, had lived in Sweden for 5 years, their applications for residence were rejected, and they were to be deported to Armenia (Dagens Nyheter March 8, 2007, my translation). Her discourse ethics will be used to help elucidate the claims of non-citizen children against the state that today give rise to reciprocal dialogues and to help clarify the exchange of reasons taking place between different actors in the public sphere and those of the state.
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