Immigration Detention and the Rule of Law: Safeguarding Principles (2nd ed.)

The second edition of the Handbook Immigration Detention and the Rule of Law is now available.

Immigration detention remains a controversial and much-debated practice just as it was when the first edition of these Safeguarding Principles was published in 2013. While the human and financial costs involved in immigration detention are well documented, the reality is that migrants continue to be detained in large numbers across the globe, with States reluctant to abandon what they consider to be a critical tool in their efforts to manage unauthorised migration.

Whilst the permissibility of such practices receives broad support under international law, this authority is not unfettered.

This handbook articulates Safeguarding Principles that set clear limits on the exercise of powers of immigration detention, while also seeking to ensure the dignity of persons detained under these powers. It proceeds from the understanding that any form of detention without such clear limits poses serious challenges to human rights and the rule of law.

This Handbook is intended to inform the work of a wide audience, including policymakers, legal practitioners, judges and civil society actors working in this area. It draws its inspiration from a core set of standards developed within international human rights law, distilling these into discrete and easily digestible principles designed to inform litigation, policy design and broader engagement with parliamentary and policy processes. The principles are organised across 5 themes namely:

I. Overarching safeguarding principles
II. Legality
III. Non-arbitrariness
IV. Treatment in detention
V. Judicial oversight and remedies

Like the previous edition that it seeks to update, the Safeguarding Principles expounded in this Handbook are unapologetically protective in their orientation, seeking to draw international standards together at their highest point to maximise the substantive and procedural protections afforded to persons detained in the immigration context.

The outputs of this project include:

• An updated handbook on Rule of Law Safeguarding Principles
• A checklist (available in .doc format here) intended to support stakeholders in assessing new developments and measures through the lens of the rule of law and of the safeguarding principles
• A Commentary applying the principles to current UK legal and policy developments

  
Questions and comments regarding this Handbook and BIICL's broader work on migration issues should be directed to Dr Jean-Pierre Gauci.