The primary text relating to claims for international protection is the 1951 Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. Although its original purpose may have been as much to limit inward migration as to protect those in need, the principal of non-refoulement that it enshrines prevents signatory states from turning back from their borders any person who would thereby face persecution. Thus it significantly curtails the power of national governments to control inward migration to their sovereign territories. Perhaps for this reason, national governments in Europe, in common with other countries, have - from the 1980s onwards - ‘destination’ tended to enact legislation and policies with the aim of restricting the number of asylum claims made on their territories. This has involved measures such as stricter border controls, increasing use of detention, and limits on refugees’ access to social and economic means of support (the so-called factors” for migration). Justification for such “pull measures has been provided in part by the creation and perpetuation of a policy image of risk, threat and danger (Maurer and Parkes, 2007), and through the merging by politicians and the media of diverse policy spheres including national security, illegal migration, terrorism, asylum and border control (Kaunert and Léonard, 2011). Although recently disbanded, at the time that the present study was undertaken, the task
The primary text relating to claims for international protection is the 1951 Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. Although its original purpose may have been as much to limit inward migration as to protect those in need, the principal of non-refoulement that it enshrines prevents signatory states from turning back from their borders any person who would thereby face persecution. Thus it significantly curtails the power of national governments to control inward migration to their sovereign territories. Perhaps for this reason, national governments in Europe, in common with other ‘destination’ countries, have - from the 1980s onwards - tended to enact legislation and policies with the aim of restricting the number of asylum claims made on their territories. This has involved measures such as stricter border controls, increasing use of detention, and limits on refugees’ access to social and economic means of support (the so-called “pull factors” for migration). Justification for such measures has been provided in part by the creation and perpetuation of a policy image of risk, threat and danger (Maurer and Parkes, 2007), and through the merging by politicians and the media of diverse policy spheres including national security, illegal migration, terrorism, asylum and border control (Kaunert and Léonard, 2011). Although recently disbanded, at the time that the present study was undertaken, the task