Research Handbook on International Law and Migration

Abstract

The notion that there is a distinct field of international law understood as international migration law is not a new phenomenon, as the introductory chapter to this impressive collection acknowledges. However, while the expression ‘international migration law’ has been engaged in international legal scholarship for decades, it could not be said that it is universally understood and accepted as a distinct sub-discipline of international law, and has certainly historically been much less visible as than the more distinctive and prominent fields of international refugee law and international human rights law. In this context, this collection makes a significant contribution to the literature by making a persuasive case for the existence of the field of international migration law - defined as ‘the set of international rules and principles governing the movement of persons between States and the legal status of migrants within host States’ (p 2). The definition, set out in Chetail’s opening chapter, encompasses the whole ‘migration circle’, including ‘departure from the country of origin, entry and stay into a foreign country, as well as return to one’s own country’, and covers any migrants irrespective of their motivations and grounds for admission, their legal status, and the duration of their stay (p 2). The key aim of conceiving the fragmented principles and rules governing such issues as part of the fabric of ‘international migration law’ is said to be ‘a methodological - if not pedagogical – one’; it has ‘the threefold purpose of providing a framework of analysis that is comprehensive, coherent and contextual’ (p 1).