Acceso usuarios
Paolo Morozzo della Rocca
The right to emigrate is only partly accounted for in international legal code that addresses the right to immigrate not at all. States do not have unlimited rights over the impenetrability of their borders. Beyond guaranteeing refuge for seekers of asylum and granting permanent residency to other foreigners assured protection under international law, states and the international community at large have a responsibility to safeguard the rights to life and health of all migrants, regardless of their legal status. Said responsibility may consequently obligate comprehensive protections for immigrants, such as those already provided for under Italian and European law. It is nonetheless necessary to recognize the existence of a grey zone between emigration for asylum and so-called economic or financial emigration. In fact, there are cases in which economic need is an effect of persecution and injustices that compromise migrants’ wellbeing, not infrequently resulting from the predatory and oppressive gestation of migrants’ native societies. In conclusion, we must preserve a geopolitical environment that extends well beyond the narrow confines of national perimeters and state on the frontiers of mass migration. If this environment is not actively protected, the hegemony of rights will cede to an epidemic of violence that drastically alters living conditions for migrants, whom, as we have seen in the past few months, are the responsibility of each and every state as well as of the international and regional organizations pledged to ensure their wellbeing.
