International Journal of Law and Society

Special Issue

Immigration Control, Citizenship, the Interplay of Sovereignty and the Vicissitudes of the Hostile Environment

  • Submission Deadline: Mar. 15, 2020
  • Status: Submission Closed
  • Lead Guest Editor: Cosmas Ikegwuruka
About This Special Issue
As a matter of well-established international law and subject to its treaty obligations, a State has the right to control the entry of non-nationals into its territory which expressed the fact that a fundamental principle of State sovereignty is that States enjoy the discretion over the admission, residence and expulsion of non-nationals in their territorial jurisdiction. This, over a given period affected the plight of non-nationals as the pre-twentieth-century developments illuminated the idea that ‘the alien was literally a non-person’. Even though this changed substantially in the middle ages due principally to Christianity being the prevalent religion in the West that emphasized the inherent dignity and equality before God of all human beings, hitherto changing the fact that the alien was no more a non-person, the story has only changed in part. This is particularly so as immigration control has a strong reliance on spectacle where the migration regime must be perceived as competent and for the State to act powerfully in the defense of its borders.
However, international human rights obligations require States to comply with their treaty obligations regarding the treatment of aliens in their territory. The underlying matter is that international legal regime and its attendant institutions presume that while individual States can maintain sovereignty over its internal affairs, they are nonetheless accountable to upholding certain principles and standards in the exercise of sovereignty which calls for a reconciliation of sovereignty with universality of human rights law. But with the resurgence of nationalism and far right ideologies across jurisdictions in Europe and the United States, the hostile environment has emerged which challenges the relevance and efficacy of the position of international human rights law in the exercise of sovereignty as it concerns immigration.
In the United Kingdom, for instance, the ‘hostile environment’ came into the lexicon of immigration law by the then British Prime Minister Theresa May, who as Home Secretary in 2012, brought into fruition, an ostensibly cruel and evidently repulsive approach towards immigration that aimed at making life difficult for irregular migrants in the UK. This, through the instrumentality of the law (Immigration Acts of 2014 & 2016), created misery for irregular migrants by a collegiate denial of their basic needs such as housing, employment, education, banking and healthcare, just to mention but a few. The idea is simply to frustrate irregular migrants to leave the United Kingdom or be detained and expelled if encountered by law enforcement agencies. The reality then is that while citizens enjoy a wide range of human rights, irregular migrants are arguably dehumanized and pilloried, and their fundamental rights trampled, on the skewed basis of nationality.
The papers in this special issue will aim to examine the rights of migrants and irregular migrants alike in the somewhat re-emergence of right-wing ideologies and nationalism within the contours of sovereignty and international human rights law. The discussion will be centered around nationalism, sovereignty and immigration control alongside the framework of international human rights as it concerns the issue of inclusion and exclusion.

Aims and Scope:

  1. Sovereignty
  2. International Human Rights Law
  3. Immigration
  4. Nationalism
  5. Hostility
  6. Inclusion and Exclusion
Lead Guest Editor
  • Cosmas Ikegwuruka

    Almond Legals-Immigration, Asylum and Human Rights Lawyers & Researchers, London, United Kingdom

Guest Editors
  • Francis Okanigbuan

    The School Law, Liverpool JohnMoores University, Liverpool, United Kingdom

  • Abubakar Lawal

    Core International Mining and Marketing Company, London, United Kingdom

  • Linus Okere

    Centre for Global Media and Communications, School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London), London, United Kingdom

  • Ndubuisi Nwafor

    University of Sterling, Sterling, United Kingdom

  • Ugonna Nkwunonwo

    Department of Geoinformatics and Surveying, University of Nigeria, Enugu, Nigeria

  • Collins C. Ajibo

    Faculty of Law, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria

  • Uchechukwu Nwoke

    Faculty of Law, University of Nigeria Nsukka, Enugu Campus, Enugu, Nigeria

Published Articles
  • ‘As It Was in the Beginning’: An Examination of the Convergence, Divergence and Dilemmas of Immigration Practices in Some Selected liberal Democratic States

    Cosmas Ikegwuruka , Ugonna Chimnonyerem Nkwunonwo

    Issue: Volume 3, Issue 2, June 2020
    Pages: 68-77
    Received: Feb. 13, 2020
    Accepted: Mar. 11, 2020
    Published: May 28, 2020
    DOI: 10.11648/j.ijls.20200302.14
    Downloads:
    Views:
    Abstract: This paper holds the view that the burgeoning phenomenon of immigration control sits uncomfortably on the fault line separating the prerogatives of State sovereignty from the rights of non-citizens regardless of the broad discretion of States to control immigration. Using liberal democratic ideologies, the paper expresses that, there is in existenc... Show More
  • ‘Beat Your Plowshares into Swords and Your Pruninghooks into Spears’: A Contextual Critique of Expulsion Decisions and Appeal Rights in the United Kingdom

    Cosmas Ukachukwu Ikegwuruka , Linus Chukwuemeka Okere

    Issue: Volume 3, Issue 2, June 2020
    Pages: 39-46
    Received: Feb. 13, 2020
    Accepted: Mar. 11, 2020
    Published: May 12, 2020
    DOI: 10.11648/j.ijls.20200302.11
    Downloads:
    Views:
    Abstract: The putative question is whether the United Kingdom complies with its treaty obligations under International Human Rights Law (IHRL) in the expulsion of migrants? The debate is that expulsion laws as they stand may have been contrived to enhance deportability or removability. It is further argued that the ever increasing and shifting pattern of dep... Show More
  • Immigration Control, Citizenship, the Interplay of Sovereignty and the Vicissitudes of the Hostile Environment in the United Kingdom

    Cosmas Ukachukwu Ikegwuruka

    Issue: Volume 3, Issue 2, June 2020
    Pages: 47-59
    Received: Mar. 10, 2020
    Accepted: Mar. 30, 2020
    Published: May 12, 2020
    DOI: 10.11648/j.ijls.20200302.12
    Downloads:
    Views:
    Abstract: In so far as individual States can maintain sovereignty over its internal affairs, they are nonetheless accountable to upholding certain principles and standards in the exercise of sovereignty, thereby calling for a reconciliation of sovereignty with universality of human rights law. In essence, international human rights obligations require States... Show More
  • Reject and Eject: Arresting the Vanishing Relevance of Non-refoulement Obligations in the United Kingdom

    Cosmas Ukachukwu Ikegwuruka

    Issue: Volume 3, Issue 1, March 2020
    Pages: 20-31
    Received: Feb. 13, 2020
    Accepted: Mar. 11, 2020
    Published: May 12, 2020
    DOI: 10.11648/j.ijls.20200301.14
    Downloads:
    Views:
    Abstract: This paper argues that expulsion decisions in the United Kingdom are sometimes at variance with the very important non-refoulement obligations in international law and raises fundamental issues of concern. However, recent legal developments in the Strasbourg jurisprudence and the Court of Justice of the European Union seem to halt this trend of the... Show More
  • Theological Mediation of the Current Alterity in Western Naturalisation Policy, Immigration Control and Global Diaspora

    Ugonna Chimnonyerem Nkwunonwo , Cosmas Ikegwuruka

    Issue: Volume 3, Issue 1, March 2020
    Pages: 32-38
    Received: Feb. 13, 2020
    Accepted: Mar. 11, 2020
    Published: May 12, 2020
    DOI: 10.11648/j.ijls.20200301.15
    Downloads:
    Views:
    Abstract: This paper explores how theological exegesis of Genesis 20 vs. 1-18 texts, and the book of Ruth can be applied in the context of mediating the harsh western citizenship and naturalisation policy, immigration rules and the global diaspora, bearing in mind the key prospects of theological reflection and how they find expressions in addressing problem... Show More