ABSTRACT
Chapter 5 considers the ‘root causes’, or drivers, of forced migration by looking at the types of human rights violations that can precede mobility, movement or displacement. In this way the chapter considers how human displacement is related to human rights in relation to the different statuses of refugees, the stateless, internally displaced persons and/or ‘victims’ of human trafficking. The chapter questions what human rights are, providing a short history of human rights and the distinctions between civil and political rights on the one hand and, on the other, social, economic and cultural rights. The universality indivisibility and inalienability of rights are considered. The International Bill of Rights and subsequent international instruments are outlined, and key critiques of human rights discussed. Human rights and forced migration and considerations around rights as a visibility exercise are outlined as well as the right to seek and enjoy asylum from persecution. Mixed movements and mixed migration are then discussed focussing on the motivations for migration and the complex causes of migration. The work of key thinkers are provided – Aristide Zolberg on ‘The Formation of New States as a “Refugee-Generating Process”’, Amartya Sen’s ‘Capabilities Approach’ and the work of Tony Kushner and Katharine Knox on refugees in an ‘Age of Genocide’.
