ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the issue of Czech Roma refugee claimants and the Canadian governmental response as reflecting the interplay between two broader trends that are affecting how contemporary states govern people and territory. First, the diffusion of universal human rights norms, second, the increasing efforts by Western receiving states to assert national control over migration flows. The chapter also examines the situation of the Roma in the Czech Republic and the measures the Czech state has implemented to protect the human rights of Roma. Czech governments did not begin to seriously address these problems until the beginning of the EU accession process, when the European Commission flagged the treatment of the Roma minority as a problem for several of the applicant countries. However, Roma continue to be frequent targets of racially motivated and extremist violence, with varying responses and outcomes involving the criminal justice system.
