Book contents
- Grasping Legal Time
- Cambridge Asylum and Migration Studies
- Grasping Legal Time
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Series Editor’s Preface
- Acknowledgment
- Table of Cases
- Table of Treaties and Directives
- Introduction
- 1 The Virtues of Legal Time
- 2 The Vices of Legal Time
- 3 Jus Temporis or the Immigrant’s Right to Human Time
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
2 - The Vices of Legal Time
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 June 2022
- Grasping Legal Time
- Cambridge Asylum and Migration Studies
- Grasping Legal Time
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Series Editor’s Preface
- Acknowledgment
- Table of Cases
- Table of Treaties and Directives
- Introduction
- 1 The Virtues of Legal Time
- 2 The Vices of Legal Time
- 3 Jus Temporis or the Immigrant’s Right to Human Time
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The success of legal time is to be found in its exterior and standardized character. In this chapter, it argued on the basis of Heidegger and Bergson that such a perspective misses the peculiar characteristics of human time and does not relate well to processes. The first characteristic of human time is that it cannot be stopped. This does not only imply that time is finite, it also means that human time inevitably moves forward from birth to one’s inescapable death. Furthermore, human time cannot be traversed: in a human life, one cannot actually go back to the past or move forward to the future. A third characteristic of human time lies in its irreducible relationship with eternity. If one wants to eternally exclude someone, it is unclear how long this will actually last. Bergson furthermore reminds us that the reference to processes is always inadequate, it is qualitatively different from what it refers. We see this in the discussion of formal and material criteria used to refer to the process of migrants living within a certain territory. Two dominant approaches – jus domicilii and jus nexi – both ultimately fail to grasp such process.
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- Information
- Grasping Legal TimeTemporality and European Migration Law, pp. 39 - 64Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022