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The Global Detention Project: Mapping the Rise of Migrant Detention in a Globalising World

Annual Call for Projects 2006

Summary

This project, supported by the Geneva International Academic Network (GIAN), aims at conducting research on the conditions of, and the factors that contribute to, the detention of international "irregular migrants," The transnational movement of people is one of the defining challenges of the 21st century, a fact dramatically underscored in the final report of the UN Global Commission on International Migration, issued in October 2005. According to the report, the number of international migrants has more than doubled in the last 30 years, rising to some 200 million people - or about one in every 35 people on the planet. A large portion of these are "irregular migrants," people who cross international borders without adequate documents or visas. According to the Commission, these numbers will inexorably grow because of the impact of globalisation and growing disparities in development between rich and poor countries.

Along with a host of other transnational issues, migration is forcing countries to look beyond the confines of national borders in search of global responses that more adequately address the scope of these issues. However, growing international cooperation on migration has coincided with an apparent reduction of legal guarantees offered to migrants in host nations. It appears that cooperation has led more and more states, including those bordering the global North, to adopt increasingly strict controls aimed at impeding the movement of people.

One form of these controls is the growing use of detention centers and internment camps as instruments for managing migration. From Great Britain to Ukraine, from the United States to Guatemala, from Australia to Malaysia, detention appears to have become a standard response to irregular migration. 

Despite these trends, there has been no systematic study assessing the role that detention plays in managing migration. Nor has there been any sustained effort at evaluating the motives that have prompted countries to increase their detention efforts, the overlap between detention policies in different countries, or the extent to which management efforts have affected States’ adherence to specific human rights norms.

The Global Detention Project will address these issues. The project will have two main objectives: 1) to investigate whether, and if so, to what degree, states have bolstered detention efforts in recent years, and the impact these efforts may have had on States’ commitments to international norms; and 2) to enhance understanding of the various factors that spur nations to choose detention in response to migration and analyse why particular detention policies are employed. The project team will pursue these goals through two means: first, by producing a survey of migrant detention centers in several global hotspots - paying particularly close attention to so-called transit states - in an effort to characterise the extent and range of detention practices; and second, by undertaking a comparative analysis of the various factors that account for why countries have opted for particular types of detention policies.

The survey part of the project will involve constructing a database providing information about the location of migrant detention facilities, the types of facilities used (e.g., admission or deportation stations, common prisons, informal or temporary camps), the reported demographics of detainees and reasons for their detention, the number of people each center can hold, conditions within facilities, details about who manages facilities, and the administrative status of detainees. This will permit the construction of a classification scheme for different types of detention centers, which will in turn be used in the comparative part of the project. Although the intention of project researchers is to use the survey data for mapping purposes and for triangulating on comparative findings, it is also intended that the data be made more widely available. Sources for constructing the database will range from national immigration authorities to reports by IOs and NGOs.

The comparative part of the project will focus on the two clusters of variables that presumably account for particular types of migrant detention policies: 1) motivational factors, i.e., the kinds of fears (e.g., of being swamped by migrants) and goals (e.g., deterring future migrants) that lead to specific types of detention practices; and 2) structural factors (e.g., budgetary restrictions, organisational mandates, the history of relations with target states) that condition which types of policies are most feasible in specific countries. In turn, the structural and motivational factors behind different types of detention policies can be inscribed in various diffusion processes, whether from formal interstate collaboration or from simple learning and imitation efforts. The comparative study will obtain its data from interviews with state officials, as well as from various reports.

The grant provided by the GIAN for this project totals SFr 200,000

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Project Team

Ms Anna Gallagher , Principal Member, International Detention Coalition .

Ms Mariette Grange , Principal Member, International Council on Human Rights Policy (ICHRP) .

Dr. Charles Harns , Principal Member, International Organization for Migration (IOM) .

Related Links

> Global Detention Project

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