TY - JOUR

T1 - Nordic Migration Cases before the UN Treaty Bodies: Pathways of International Accountability?

AU - Scott Ford, Sarah

PY - 2022

Y1 - 2022

N2 - The UN human rights treaty bodies have decided an extensive amount of complaints brought by asylum seekers and immigrants against the Nordic states. This development forms part of a larger shift in international accountability routes that have emerged from the uptake of migrants’ rights claims by human rights courts and treaty bodies. The article examines what this development engenders in both international and national contexts, using the Nordic litigation as a focal point. The first part posits that the litigation has played a significant role in developing international law. It further explains that the significant amount of these cases in the region, but also variance across states, partly comes down to the degree of strategic litigation and the design of national asylum systems. The second part examines what emerges from this oversight, and identifies four factors from which to understand these national contexts: the design of the asylum system; the question of ‘credibility’; existence of parallel jurisprudence from the European Court of Human Rights; and communicative and functional processes that exist beyond final merits decisions. Overall, attention to the aftermath of these – formally soft law – decisions reveals that they do have quasi-judicial effects in the national contexts.

AB - The UN human rights treaty bodies have decided an extensive amount of complaints brought by asylum seekers and immigrants against the Nordic states. This development forms part of a larger shift in international accountability routes that have emerged from the uptake of migrants’ rights claims by human rights courts and treaty bodies. The article examines what this development engenders in both international and national contexts, using the Nordic litigation as a focal point. The first part posits that the litigation has played a significant role in developing international law. It further explains that the significant amount of these cases in the region, but also variance across states, partly comes down to the degree of strategic litigation and the design of national asylum systems. The second part examines what emerges from this oversight, and identifies four factors from which to understand these national contexts: the design of the asylum system; the question of ‘credibility’; existence of parallel jurisprudence from the European Court of Human Rights; and communicative and functional processes that exist beyond final merits decisions. Overall, attention to the aftermath of these – formally soft law – decisions reveals that they do have quasi-judicial effects in the national contexts.

U2 - 10.1163/15718107-91010003

DO - 10.1163/15718107-91010003

M3 - Journal article

VL - 91

SP - 44

EP - 79

JO - Nordic Journal of International Law

JF - Nordic Journal of International Law

SN - 0902-7351

IS - 1

ER -