Dec 2, 2013 | environment, Global Public Goods, Passage au crible (English), Security
By Clément Paule
Translation: Marion Marchet
Passage au crible n°98
Source : Wikipedia
The removal of more than 1,500 nuclear fuel rods immersed in the reactor 4’s pool of Fukushima Daiichi’s damaged plant – a huge enterprise expected to last about a year – has started on November 7, 2013. TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) directors, in charge of this pressing operation, have described it as a major step in the process of dismantling the damaged infrastructure since March 11, 2011. However, the highly risky character of this intervention should be underlined, as a 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck in the Pacific Ocean on October 26, 2013, leading to the immediate evacuation of the staff working on the damaged site. Moreover, the multiple breakdowns of the radioactive water treatment system – such as the recurring leaks in storage tanks – have revealed the limits in the management of the disaster by the Japanese firm, which had been nationalized in July 2012. This permanent state of crisis, that has now lasted for two years and a half, remains framed by uncertainty, starting with the future of the Fukushima Daiichi installations – the definitive closing down of which is expected to span over several decades. Yet, in the course of those last months the Japanese government have developed a reassuring discourse illustrating their willingness to regain control – at least symbolically speaking – of a complex situation that seems to be far from being stabilized.
> Historical background
> Theoretical framework
> Analysis
> References
Historical background
First, some data about the pollution resulting from the events of March 2011. In July 2013, the IRSN (Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety) stated that an estimate of 60 and 27 petabecquerels (millions of billions of becquerels) of radioactive material were present in the atmosphere and the ocean respectively. If the global level of contamination seems to be decreasing, its long-term impact on groundwater and rivers may turn out to be more important than anticipated. In July 2013, TEPCO finally admitted that 300 tons of radioactive water poured daily into the Pacific. Nevertheless, these numbers do not allow us yet to measure precisely the sanitary consequences on the disaster-stricken populations, who are the object of competing and controversial assessments. Faced with the uncertainty of the post-accident crisis, the Japanese authorities had rapidly organized a series of evacuations within a radius of several dozens of kilometers, leading to the perennial exile of more than 150,000 people. In this respect, a system of restricted access areas has been established based on an unacceptability threshold of dose set at 20 mSv (millisieverts) per year. The definition of an exclusion perimeter has then been accompanied by measures for decontamination of irradiated areas. These boundaries have nevertheless been reduced since 2012, as the government endeavor to encourage the return of displaced inhabitants by modifying standards for the measurement of radioactivity.
Theoretical framework
1. Liquidating Symbolically the Disaster. Since the election of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the end of 2012, the new team in office have tried to regain control of the situation through the delivery of speeches that tend to minimize the consequences of the accident in the name of national recovery.
2. Deficiencies in the Protection Apparatus. Yet, the measures implemented to protect the population are constantly embroiled in polemics, insomuch that the managing of the crisis is marked by opacity and contradictions colliding with the government’s rhetoric.
Analysis
Although antinuclear mobilizations have been fading away two years and a half after the outbreak of the crisis, they nevertheless remain vocal when it comes to providing second opinions. Members of the permanent camp set up in front of the MCI (Ministry of Commerce and Industry) since September 11, 2011 and named Tento Hiroba – Tent Plaza – continue to organize protesting activities despite the judicial proceedings filed against them. So far, periodical demonstrations relayed by national petitions call for the permanent end of nuclear power all the while contesting the official estimates minimizing sanitary and environmental risks. It should be noted that the controversy has recently spread onto the report published by UNSCEAR (United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation) and submitted to the United Nations General Assembly on October 25, 2013. The conclusions elaborated by eighty scientists who contributed to this assessment were rejected by numerous Japanese NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) and associations, as well as by the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health. Appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council, this independent expert elaborated as early as May 2013 a virulent report against the protection apparatus that had been set up, targeting in particular its definition of the unacceptability threshold regarding radioactive exposure.
However, as early as May 27, 2013, this document prompted a quick and detailed reply from the Japanese government – a refutation that falls into a large-scale counteroffensive led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s team. Since his entry into office in December 2012, Shinzo Abe has worked on orchestrating Japan’s recovery of its economy – through Abenomics, a set of measures based on the depreciation of the yen in order to increase money supply, fiscal stimulus, as well as the announcement of structural reforms – but also of its diplomacy. Through this strategy Japan aims to impose itself as a major actor in Asia Pacific regional security – as illustrates the militaro-humanitarian intervention by the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) in the Philippines after the deadly typhoon Haiyan – all the while adopting a firm stand on memory and territorial disagreements with China and South Korea. In that regard, the election of Tokyo as the host city for the 2020 Olympic Games has marked the confirmation of this rhetoric of reassurance. Indeed, the Prime Minister had stated during his audition before the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on September 7, 2013 that ‘‘the situation [at Fukushima was] under control’’. This statement was strongly criticized in the national media and was described as a government’s lie by activists, especially as a high-ranked TEPCO member contradicted it as early as the following week.
Such a crack in the official communication process seems far from being the only one, inasmuch as the Japanese political class do not seem to unanimously support this liquidation discourse pushing into the background the unfinished handling of the disaster. Former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, Shinzo Abe’s mentor, has recently positioned himself in favor of the end of nuclear power, thus stigmatizing the end of the safety myth. It represents an obvious disavowal of his former protégé who supports the restarting of plants and the exportation of the Japanese nuclear technology, going as far as to relying on the capitalized experience in Fukushima. Moreover, members of Naoto Kan’s government have revealed that for two years TEPCO had deliberately dissimulated information about contaminated water leaks in order to safeguard their position on international markets. In addition to those discordant elements is Tetsuya Hayashi’s testomy, a former worker working at the accident site and a whistleblower who denounced the suspect system of subcontracting and exploitation of Fukushima 50 involving the criminal organizations yakuza. Those contradictions at the heart of the handling of the crisis itself may lead the state to take responsibility for the direct and exclusive control of the operations of decontamination, as recently recommended by a LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) committee in power. But beyond this potential public management of the process, issues of transparency and responsibility in the post-Fukushima era seem to remain in the background. After the rejection of complaints filed by Tokyo’s Public Prosecutors Office in September 2013, the Japanese House of Representatives have just passed a law designed to impose heavy sanctions for information leaks to the press. In those conditions, the return of the state appears more as a risk factor likely to ensure the continued existence of instability and opacity within this global peril.
References
Grover Anand, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, Mission to Japan (15-26 November 2012) – Advance Unedited Version, 2 mai 2013, consulté sur le site de l’OHCHR (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights) : http://www.ohchr.org [25 novembre 2013].
Ribault Nadine, Ribault Thierry, Les Sanctuaires de l’abîme. Chronique du désastre de Fukushima, L’Encyclopédie des nuisances, Paris, 2012.
Site de l’UNSCEAR (United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation) consacré à Fukushima : http://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/fukushima.html [22 novembre 2013].
Nov 24, 2013 | Digital Industry, Non-state diplomacy, Passage au crible (English)
By Adrien Cherqui
Translation: Lawrence Myers
Passage au crible n°97
Source: Wikimedia
i24News has just been created. This new international news station is based in Tel Aviv. Since July 17, 2013, it broadcasts news in French, English and Arabic for Europe, the Middle East, Africa and China. It plans to gradually enter the American market beginning in 2014.
> Historical background
> Theoretical framework
> Analysis
> References
Historical background
The global media represent some of key actors of globalization. Amongst them an oligopoly sets itself apart. Its major players are the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) founded in 1922, CNN (Cable News Network) created in 1980 by Ted Turner and finally Al Jazeera founded in 1996 by the Emir of Qatar, the Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani. Veritable institutions, they form a configuration of actors that have been able to gain worldwide influence with their content. As for France 24, the news station was launched in December 2006 by the impetus of the French government.
i24news is a perfect example of the news stations which first appeared in the 1980s offering continuous coverage. In fact, it aspires to produce news from Israel and “to give voice to the diversity in this country” according to its President Frank Melloul, former director of audio-visual strategy outside of France – regrouping RFI, TV5 and France 24 – and former communications advisor to the French Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin. Mr. Melloul partnered with Patrick Drahi, manager of several cable operators around the world, principal shareholder of Numéricable in France, holder of Hot located in Israel and owner of the former television channel Guysen TV, dedicated to Israel. Mr. Melloul directs i24News, while Mr. Drahi finances it. This media recorded in Luxembourg and not linked to Israeli institutions – aims to offer an alternative and independent view of the international. Born of a desire for audio-visual autonomy, this station provides a media tool profitable to Israel.
Theoretical framework
The construction of a transnational public sector. Stakeholders in the process of globalization, global media participate in the emergence of a public sector and in the advent of the global village by intensifying the relationships and interactions between social entities. By disseminating and sharing of information, they work towards a reconfiguration of the political identities and perceptions that individuals have of the world.
A non-State reinforcement of the Soft Power of States. Information providers exert a more subtle influence than simple cultural products permit. Able to undertake a soft diffusion of values and symbolism, they thereby contribute to the attractiveness of States.
Analysis
Unlike France24, Russia Today and CCTV from China, the agency i24News does not respond to a logical rationalization of foreign broadcasting. Rather, this new global media places itself in a highly competitive and ever more dense information market. There is competition in terms of audience but also in terms of production of audio-visual content and images. i24News does not claim to create its own identity that would distinguish it from its counterparts and its rivals such as Al Jazeera, strongly present in the Middle East. Thus, i24News takes part in the multiplication of international broadcasters that have characterized the advent of media diversity in recent years. It is in this new configuration that States attempt – as producers of cultural matrices – to weigh on the globalization of information.
According to a May 2013 survey by BBC World on the supposed positive influence of sixteen European Union countries on the world, a panel of 26,000 people ranked Israel fourteenth, just ahead of North Korea, Pakistan and Iran. It should therefore be noted that this country must also not have a good image. The ambition of i24News is thus to “connect Israel to the world, but also to connect the world to Israeli society” in order to show all of its complexities. Supported by multilingualism founded on French, English and Arabic, this new media made the choice of entering the anglosphere, a decision echoed by a overwhelming majority of its rivals, which permits it to win a large audience, insofar as English has been established as the veritable lingua franca of globalization. As for broadcasting in Arabic, this decision corresponds to the desire to communicate alternative information to Israel’s neighbors and to compete with Al Jazeera, the dominant media actor in the region. i24News, which participates in a public sector in which schemes of perception, references and cognitive frameworks combine, is also prepared to provide a specific approach on the world stage. It promotes Israeli society and takes part de facto in the world influence of the State of Israel.
i24News participates in the development of Israel’s soft power and is already contributing to the country’s prestige. Indeed, while Israeli authorities are hesitant to authorize the broadcast of this station on their own territory, this private initiative incorporates itself into Israeli diplomacy. Yet, it constitutes an instrument of public diplomacy without simply forming an extension of it. Actually, this undertaking meets the Israeli deficit in terms of global audio-visual. In this respect, it appears as a response aiming to stem the erosion of State power in globalization.
References
Blet Cyril, Une Voix mondiale pour un État. France 24, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2008. Coll. Chaos International.
Brinkerhoff Jennifer, Digital Diasporas : Identity and Transnational Engagement, Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Chong Alan, Foreign Policy in Global Information Space. Actualizing Soft Power, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
Habermas Jürgen, L’Espace public : archéologie de la publicité comme dimension constitutive de la société bourgeoise, Payot, Paris, 1997.
Keohane Robert, Nye Joseph, “Power and Interdependence in the Information Age”, Foreign Affairs, 77, Sept.-Oct. 1998, pp. 81-94.
Melissen Jan, The New Public Diplomacy: Soft Power in International Relations, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
Perez Maxime, “Israël: i24news, la voix de Tel-Aviv”, Jeune Afrique, 3 May 2013, available at: http://www.jeuneafrique.com/Article/JA2729p054.xml0/
Reed John, “Israel’s Hard News and Soft Power”, Financial Times, 29 August 2013, available at: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/33805a2e-0fd9-11e3-99e0-00144feabdc0.html
Nov 20, 2013 | Global Public Health, International commerce, Passage au crible (English)
By Michaël Cousin
Translation: Lawrence Myers
Passage au crible n°96
On September 25, 2013, the IRACM (Institute of Research Against Counterfeit Medicine) presented a report on counterfeit medicine as organized crime. This study intended to better expose the phenomenon, but also to provoke reflections and to provide the tools needed to protect oneself from it.
> Historical background
> Theoretical framework
> Analysis
> References
Historical background
Pixabay
For a long time, medicine has been spared from counterfeiting despite the globalization of national economies and the expansion of communication techniques. However, according to the IRACM, global prescription drug fraud allegedly began the moment the USSR collapsed. It seems to have intensified when China became a member of the WTO (World Trade Organization). The distribution of counterfeit medicine apparently became so significant that it may have even surpassed the sale of legal products by 20% between 2005-2010. Even if this phenomenon appears to be global, it more so concerns developing countries. According to the IRACM report, 10% of prescription drugs sold in such countries may be counterfeited versus only 1% in developed countries.
These falsified substances don several characteristics. It generally concerns copies of legal, non-generic substances. Most of them prove to be poorly dosed or in poorly packed. Certain ones contain no active principle, while others may even contain toxic substances. Furthermore, all types of medicine are concerned: antiseptics, painkillers or anti-inflammatories, but also vital products like antiretroviral drugs (HIV, Hepatitis C, etc.). As a case in point, the analysis reveals that in the 90 states receiving false treatments for malaria and tuberculosis, there are regrettably 700,000 deaths annually.
In most cases, clients become the accomplices of the counterfeiters. Yet, in the trafficking of imitation drugs, the buyer acts for his own account, therefore putting his life at stake. This is why IRACM qualifies this type of counterfeiting as organized crime. It is structured around many actors – from the individual to organized crime – and on different scales, from the small group to transnational organizations. For that matter, due to the liberalization of markets and the growth of communication methods, traffickers have numerous means of infiltration available to them including cyber criminality. But certain counterfeiters also use official distribution networks to the point that health professionals – notably pharmacists – are themselves as deceived as patients.
Theoretical framework
1. The social determinants of health. The health of individual is affected by several factors such as the environment in which they grow and develop, from birth to old age, their living and working conditions as well as the quality of the healthcare systems available to them. As it happens, public policies play a predominant role in this area because they are themselves conditioned by relationships of money, power and resources available at the local, national and global level.
2. The commercialization of health in favor of organized crime. In a neoliberal economic context, the privatization of drugs on the world scale – both in terms of their production and distribution – permits a maximization of profits. Criminal organizations, as well as individuals, then benefit from the competition between medical treatments delivered by firms in order to offer counterfeit products that are more competitive in terms of price, but are less efficient. The effect is to guarantee their high profitability.
Analysis
Illegal companies present themselves as legitimate businesses. They too are looking to sell products and to ensure the best financial gain possible. In order to do so, they resort to management techniques that are as well developed as they are effective. Finally, they employ competent staff while at the same time being careful to refinance and to recycle their treasury. In this case, the counterfeiting of drugs proves to be more profitable than legal production because it avoids all investment in research and development. Additionally, their manufacturing does not meet any quality standards (poor conditions, insufficient packaging, no active principal, etc.) and remains clandestine.
In this respect, Carol Reed’s British thriller, The Third Man, remains paradigmatic. Viewers see traffickers profiting from a shortage of penicillin in a post-war Vienna to sell the drug in a more diluted form. Like those in Vienna, today’s counterfeiters also thrive on poverty or the impoverishment of populations attracted by treatment at a lower cost. In the same way, modern day traffickers benefit from the consumers’ lack of information and the weakness of border controls.
For want of possessing an efficient system of physical or immaterial control, States suffer from current border openings, which unquestionably facilitate the work of criminal organizations. Such organizations capitalize on the deregulation of national economies and their virtual counterparts (market financialization) in order to distribute their production around the globe. An increase in the number of steps of manufacturing of false therapeutic substances complicates the struggle against them. Added to this is the use of tax havens in order to launder the profits from this prohibited trade.
The difference between these criminals and pharmaceutical companies lies in the methods used to achieve their goals. Admittedly, corruption is present in both entities, but the legal industries do not use violence as a means to enter markets. However, these negotiations are not solely built on the domination over all actors, they can develop by the involvement of those seeking benefits. In this respect, let us recall that individuals sometimes sell products via a virtual pharmacy without knowing their quality or origin. As for local politicians or government employees, we have already seen cases of their facilitating the trafficking of counterfeit drugs within official distribution systems (hospitals, pharmacies, medical visits, etc.) with the avowed objective of receiving clandestine services or better salaries in return.
These transgressions are not the only problem that States must contend with. Countries’ financial problems, especially developing ones, distort the proper functioning of their healthcare systems. On the one hand, industrial protection restricts access to the most affordable medications, such as generic brands. On the other hand, their governments cannot substantially commit to the prevention of this transnational criminality. It is true that the Palermo Convention, adopted in the context of the United Nations in December 2000, provides a framework for the reinforcement of police and judicial cooperation on an international scale. However, none of the accompanying protocols (trafficking of persons, migrant and arm smuggling) is exclusively dedicated to this new human disaster.
References
Institut de Recherche Anti-Contrefaçon des Médicaments, “Contrefaçon de medicaments et organisations criminels,” 2013, link: http://www.iracm.com/2013/09/liracm-presente-un-rapport-detude-inedit-contrefacon-de-medicaments-et-organisations-criminelles/
Organisation Mondiale de la Santé, “Déterminants sociaux de la santé,” link:
http://www.who.int/social_determinants/fr/
Briquet Jean Louis, Favarel-Garrigues Gilles (Éds.), Milieux criminels et pouvoir politique. Les ressorts illicites de l’État, Paris, Karthala, 2008, Coll. Recherche Internationales.
Pouvoirs, “Le crime organisé,” (132), Jan. 2010, pp. 5-137.
Nov 20, 2013 | Research dissemination, Théorie En Marche
This collective work takes an interdisciplinary approach by bringing together the contributions of anthropologists, historians, legal experts, political scientists, and sociologists. The analyzed cases of rape refer to numerous countries like Bangladesh, Columbia or the Republic of the Congo. It also talks about numerous conflicts: the two World Wars as well as local confrontations such as the Greek Civil War or the clash that opposed private militias and Maoist guerrillas in Bihar. This collective body of research underlines an object all too often neglected by the social sciences. It has indeed remained marginalized in the academic field and on the battlefield. However, rape constitutes a weapon of mass terror with regards to civilian populations. It is a question of a crime occupying a central place in wars even though by and large it has been explicitly outlawed by civil and military penal codes since the beginning of the modern era.
Raphaëlle Branche, Fabrice Virigili, Viols en temps de guerre, Paris, Payot, 2013, 359 p.
Oct 30, 2013 | Human rights, International migrations, Passage au crible (English), Publications (English)
By Catherine Wihtol de Wenden
Translation: Lawrence Myers
Passage au crible n°95
The drama in Lampedusa, followed by new arrivals between Malta and Lampedusa, have since October 2013, led to new international negotiations on migration politics, both on the European and world scales. Let us recall that 366 people perished in Lampedusa during the night of October 3-4, 2013, at the precise moment that the second High Level Dialogue on migration and development was being held in New York. Spearheaded by Kofi Annan in 2006 to evaluate the progress of multilateralism in the governance of migrations, this summit brought together numerous IGOs and NGOs, sending and receiving countries, experts as well as members of civil society linked to the question of migration. In response to this tragedy, Brussels reinforced the powers of the agency Frontex by conferring on it more financial wherewithal. At the same time, a European summit (October 24-25) devoted to the control of migratory politics, reminded attendees of the necessity for European countries to share the burden of the arrival of illegal migrants and asylum seekers.
> Historical background
> Theoretical framework
> Analysis
> References
Historical background
This is not the first time that people are talking about Lampedusa. In his film “Le Guépard” (The Cheetah), Lucchino Visconti evoked this ancient possession of the princes of Lampedusa and the interchange of Sicily, which during the Risorgimento passed between the Bourbon kings of Spain and the Kingdom of Italy. But today, the island is experiencing drama of a different nature. In the last twenty years, we can count twenty thousand deaths in the Mediterranean, of which Lampedusa was one of the principal cemeteries due to its southern location between the Tunisian Cap Bon and Sicily, which makes it particularly accessible. Its inhabitants are divided between rescuing the shipwrecked in the name of the Law of the Sea – which places them in a position of infraction with Italian legislation sanctioning the assistance of an illegal stay – and the necessity of welcoming tourists from the North who today bring in more revenue than fishing. This dilemma was recently illustrated by Emmanuele Crialese’s film, “Terra ferma”. Among the most extreme cases, let us recall the case of the victims of the Senegalese shipwreck in the middle of the Mediterranean, who, grasping onto the wire fish netting, were saved by Tunisian fishermen condemned in 2008 for facilitation of unauthorized residence in Italy. The Island of Lampedusa, after having been a point of arrival for asylum seekers and undocumented aliens until the mid-2000s, was thereafter less often used for such purposes, as the new arrivals were directly convoyed onto Italian soil. It was at the time of the Arab revolutions in 2011 that Lampedusa once again became the target of people smugglers and makeshift boats, the Arab Spring having witnessed the surge of tens of thousands of Tunisians and Libyans. The summer season – peak period of transit – also explains the remarkable affluence, since other small boats arrived off the coast of Malta and Lampedusa after the catastrophe. At that time, the occupants came from the Horn of Africa (Eritrea, Somalia) and from Syria. They had sometimes traveled for several months, had been imprisoned, and then had paid smugglers in order to arrive at what they considered to be the European Eldorado, in the hopes of finding asylum and of entering the job market. Children accompanied them. Nevertheless, this is not an isolated case, as they are many other Lampedusas, and there will be new ones, if reinforced border control continues to be the only European response to the Mediterranean migrations. Otherwise, Brussels considers Frontex, which patrols the region, to be financially ill equipped (87 million euros). The right to asylum is not adapted to the situation of these mixed flows whose treatment appears to be too slow, as for example we saw with the Leonarda affair in France, which arose after four years of proceedings. In this humanly delicate context, the UN summit in New York presented a discourse favorable to mobility, a source of human development. It also recommended securing the migrants’ route in respect of Human Rights. Likewise, it advised adapting the qualified and unqualified workforce to the job markets in need. Finally, it underlined the demographic disequilibrium that exists between the North and the South. Consequently, we might be surprised that the ultimate response was as safe and short term.
United by the Community since 2004, polls bear witness to the fact that European immigration policy is defined by those European States plagued by the rise of concerns for safety. It is in this way that the sharing of the burden between European countries in matters of reception of immigrants which resulted in the Dublin II Accords on asylum – often results in the absence of solidarity between northern European and southern Europe, as the majority of illegal arrivals come via the South. Let us briefly note that most undocumented immigrants did not enter Europe in this manner: they arrived under legal circumstances and then prolonged their stay. Finally, European policy invites countries situated on the exterior borders of Europe, notably on the southern coast of the Mediterranean, the task of policing their boarders and filtering illegal immigrants. However, this duty appears to be less diligently taken on by current-day Tunisia and Libya than in the days of Ben Ali and Gaddafi. How can we then reconcile the international discourse on migration – as shown by expert reports, international organizations, law texts – and European responses? For the States of the Union who content themselves with a safe approach and a militarization of controls, this shift testifies to the incapacity to accept a position in the medium and long term.
Theoretical framework
1. A multilateral governance of migration. Migration is talked about at neither G8, nor at G20 because the question is “bothersome,” so it is said. It is true that no world conference has been held concerning international migration, as was the case in Cairo (on population), then in Beijing (on women), and in Durban (the fight against discrimination). However, the theme has been pulled from the Accords of Barcelona on the Mediterranean euro (1995-2005) and from the Union for the Mediterranean. Yet, an international discourse on migration indeed exists. It is seeking to reconcile three objectives:
1) securing the board 2) respecting Human Rights 3) improving the flow of the workforce necessary to the labor market. But the world’s interdependence is barely taken into account in these analyses, as factors external to migration (regional crises management, raw materials pricing or the definition of development policy can exert an impact on the entry into mobility of populations). Finally, the current crisis of regional governance of migration is underscored by the prudence of European policy in response to the tragic event in Lampedusa. In lieu of promoting circulation to combat the traffic economy, reinforcement of controls remains the only response. It is clear that Europeanization of migration politics struggles to affirm itself in a context of the rise neo-sovereigntism and the security imperative. The governance demonstrated is thus in contradiction with the definition of the global objectives assured in New York.
2. The reassurance of the sovereignty principal. In its globalized dimension, the question of migration puts the United Nations to the test of confirming their sovereignty, as the physical borders of the planet do not correspond to the political borders of States. The absence of world governance of migration and the absence of a definition of the right to mobility as a Human Right, underline the preeminence of the Nation State in the management of migration flows. In reality, governments refuse mobility as a figure of globalization, because they esteem that they are the greatest losers of an international order that ever continues to elude them. Let us note, nonetheless, that for the last thirty years, neither dissuasion policy nor return policy, nor even the perspective of better development, has been able to show any efficiency whatsoever in controlling borders.
Analysis
If counted, the total number of spaces of free migration in the world comes to 25, but few among this number function in a satisfactory manner due to political conflicts that oppose member states. Nevertheless, in an interdependent world, international migration appears to be the less fluid factor of globalization. It is a structural phenomenon, paradoxically linked to the development of the more urbanized countries of the global South, where the more educated population aspires to a wellness which it achieves thanks especially to migration. Departure countries encourage this mobility, in order to export social protests – half of the population under the age of 25 – due to funds transfers (400 billion dollars in 2012 were sent by migrants to their home countries). All research has shown that levels of emigration tend to rise along with economic levels of departure countries, as the aspirations of the population also increase and because migration flows count higher qualification levels than those of natives. In short, emigration also shows that the more borders are open, the more people circulate and less they settle down. This is exactly what was observed in Eastern Europe since the fall of the Iron Curtain. In the southern Mediterranean, the opening of migration to an increased number of categories of migrants (work contracts for unqualified workers, tourists, students, transnational entrepreneurs) would permit development for both sides, as many of these actors are blocked by difficulties linked to visas. From now on, it is clear than impenetrable borders cannot stop the migratory flow, it will merely enrich smugglers.
References
Wihtol de Wenden Catherine, Le Droit d’émigrer, Paris, CNRS Editions 2013.
Wihtol de Wenden Catherin, Pour accompagner les migrations en méditerranée, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2013.
