Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-04T19:42:27.175Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Irregular migrants and the human right to health care: a case-study of health-care provision for irregular migrants in France and the UK

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 September 2011

Sylvie da Lomba
Sylvie da Lomba*
Affiliation:
University of Strathclyde
*
[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

International human rights law attaches the right of health care to the person. States, however, predicate this right on membership in the national community and access to publicly subsidised health care is normally contingent on national membership. With this in mind, this article considers the significance of a human rights approach to access to health care and undertakes a comparative study of health-care provision for irregular migrants in France and the UK. Irregular migrants are ineligible for national membership because they have breached immigration laws. Consequently their right to health care may only arise from international human rights law. This comparative study, however, shows that states resist the idea of a right to health care for people they regard as a threat to national sovereignty. Yet the author posits that the exercise of the government's immigration power may be reconciled with the realisation of irregular migrants' human right to health care.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Law in Context , Volume 7 , Special Issue 3: Health and Human Rights , September 2011 , pp. 357 - 374
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Banting, Keith and Kymlicka, Will (2006) ‘Introduction, Multiculturalism: Setting the Context’, in Banting, Keith and Kymlicka, Will (eds), Multiculturalism and the Welfare State: Recognition and Redistribution in Contemporary Democracies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benhabib, Seyla (2004) The Rights of Others: Aliens, Residents, and Citizens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bissuel, Bertrand (2003) ‘Le Gouvernement Met Fin à la Gratuité des Soins pour les Sans-Papiers’, Le Monde 4 March: 11.Google Scholar
Bogusz, Barbara, Cholewinski, Ryszard, Cygan, Adam and Szyszczak, Erika (eds) (2004) Irregular Migration and Human Rights: Theoretical, European and International Perspectives. Leiden and Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.Google Scholar
Bosniak, Linda (2006) The Citizen and the Alien: Dilemmas of Contemporary Membership. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brubaker, Rogers (1992) Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buchanan, Allen (2001) ‘From Nuremburg to Kosovo: The Morality of Illegal International Legal Reform’, Ethics 111(4): 673–705.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Centre for European Policy Studies (October 2010) ‘Assessing EU Policy on Irregular Immigration under the Stockholm Programme’. Available at: www.ceps.eu/book/assessing-eu-policy-irregular-immigration-under-stockholm-programme (accessed 29 March 2011).Google Scholar
Cholewinski, Ryszard (2006) ‘Identifying and Clarifying Concepts on “irregular Migration”’, paper presented at the 10th IOM Regional Conference on Migration, Singapore.Google Scholar
Cholewinski, Ryszard (1997) Migrant Workers in International Human Rights Law: Their Protection in Countries of Employment. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cole, Philip (2007) ‘Human Rights and the National Interest: Migrants, Health-care and Social Justice’, Journal of Medical Ethics 33: 269–72.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dauvergne, Catherine (2004) ‘Sovereignty, Migration and the Rule of Law in Global Times’, Modern Law Review 67(4): 588–615.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Demleitner, Nora V. (1997–1998) ‘The Fallacy of Social “Citizenship”, or the Threat of Exclusion’, Georgetown Immigration Law Journal 12: 35–64.Google Scholar
Department of Health (England) (2004) ‘Proposals to Exclude Overseas Visitors from Eligibility to Free NHS Primary Medical Services’. Available at: www.dh.gov.uk/en/Consultations/Closedconsultations/DH_4087618 (accessed 29 March 2011).Google Scholar
Department of Health (England) (2 April 2009) ‘Advice for Overseas Visitors Managers on: 1a) Failed Asylum Seekers & Ordinary/Lawful Residence; 1b) When to Provide Treatment for those who are Chargeable; Victims of Human Trafficking’. Available at: mighealth.net/uk/images/7/7a/Dhund.pdf (accessed 29 March 2011).Google Scholar
Department of Health (England) (September 2009) ‘Eligibility for Free Hospital Treatment under the NHS’. Available at: www.dh.gov.uk/en/Health-care/Entitlementsandcharges/OverseasVisitors/Browsable/DH_074374 (accessed 29 March 2011).Google Scholar
Department of Health (England) (2010) ‘Draft Guidance on Implementing the Overseas Visitors Hospital Charging Regulations’. Available at: www.rcm.org.uk/EasysiteWeb/getresource.axd?AssetID=123181&servicetype=Attachment%20 (accessed 29 March 2011).Google Scholar
Department of Health (England) (February 2010) ‘Review of Access to the NHS by Foreign Nationals, Consultation Proposals’. Available at: www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/@dh/@en/documents/digitalasset/dh_113243.pdf (accessed 29 March 2011).Google Scholar
Favereau, Éric (2010) ‘Aide Médicale aux Étrangers : la Gratuité Coûte 30 Euros’, Libération 4 November. Available at: www.liberation.fr/societe/01012300278-aide-medicale-aux-etrangers-la-gratuite-coute-30-euros (accessed 29 March 2011).Google Scholar
Gissler, Éric, Azoulay, Jack, Havard, Henri, Sourlas, Philippe, Chambeaud, Laurent and Corlay, Delphine (May 2007) ‘Mission d'audit de modernisation, Rapport sur la Gestion de l'Aide Médicale d'État’, Inspection générale des affaires sociales and Inspection générale des Finances, Paris. Avalable at: http://lesrapports.ladocumentationfrancaise.fr/BRP/074000345/0000.pdf (accessed 29 March 2011).Google Scholar
Gittler, Josephine (1994) ‘Controlling Resurgent Tuberculosis: Public Health Agencies, Public Policy and the Law’, Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 19(1): 107–147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gordon, Ian, Scanlon, Kathleen, Travers, Tony and Whitehead, Christine (April 2009) ‘Economic Impact on the London and UK Economy of an Earned Regularisation of Irregular Migrants to the UK’, LSE, London. Available at: www.london.gov.uk/mayor/economic_unit/docs/irregular-migrants-report.pdf (accessed 29 March 2011).Google Scholar
Guild, Elspeth (2004) ‘Who is an Irregular Migrant?’, in Bogusz, Barbara, Cholewinski, Ryszard, Cygan, Adam and Szyszczak, Erika (eds), Irregular Migration and Human Rights: Theoretical, European and International Perspectives. Leiden and Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 3–28.Google Scholar
Hammar, Tomas (1990) Democracy and the Nation State. Aldershot: Avebury.Google Scholar
IGF [Inspection générale des finances] and IGAS [Inspection générale des affaires sociales] (November 2010) ‘Analyse de l'Évolution des Dépenses au titre de l'Aide Médicale d'État’. Available at: www.igas.gouv.fr/spip.php?article135 (accessed 29 March 2011).Google Scholar
Janoski, Thomas (1998) Citizenship and Civil Society, A Framework of Rights & Obligations in Liberal, Traditional, and Social Democratic Regimes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kostakopoulou, Dora (2004) ‘Irregular Migration and Migration Theory: Making State Authorisation Less Relevant’, in Bogusz, Barbara, Cholewinski, Ryszard, Cygan, Adam and Szyszczak, Erika (eds), Irregular Migration and Human Rights: Theoretical, European and International Perspectives. Leiden and Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 41–57.Google Scholar
Le Faou, Anne-Laurence (2003) Le Système de Santé en Questions, Allemagne, France, Royaume-Uni, Etats-Unis et Canada. Paris: Ellipses Marketing.Google Scholar
LegomskyStephen, H Stephen, H. (1994–1995) ‘Immigration, Federalism, and the Welfare State’, UCLA Law Review 42: 1453–74.Google Scholar
Lopez, Mary J. (2000) ‘Access to Health-care for Legal and Undocumented Immigrants’, Immigration and Nationality Law Review 21: 641–62.Google Scholar
MacPherson, Douglas W. and Gushulak, Brian D. (2004) ‘Irregular Migration and Health’, Global Commission on International Migration (GCIM), Global Migration Perspectives, No. 7, October. Available at: www.gcim.org/gmp/Global%20Migration%20Perspectives%20No%207.pdf (accessed 29 March 2011).Google Scholar
Meckled-García, Saladin and Çali, Basak (2005) ‘Human Rights Legalized – Defining, Interpreting and Implementing an Ideal’ in Meckled-García, Saladin and Çali, Basak (eds), The Legalization of Human Rights: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Human Rights and Human Rights Law. London and New York: Routledge, 1–31.Google Scholar
Miller, David (1988) ‘The Ethical Significance of Nationality’, Ethics 98(4): 647–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morris, Lydia (2010) Asylum, Welfare and the Cosmopolitan Ideal: A Sociology of Rights. Abington: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neuman, Gerald (1996) Strangers to the Constitution. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Norredam, Marie, Mygind, Anna and Krasnik, Allan (2006) ‘Access to Health Care for Asylum Seekers in the European Union – A Comparative Study of Country Policies’, European Journal of Public Health 16: 285–89.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rubio-Marín, Ruth (2000) Immigration as a Democratic Challenge. Citizenship and Inclusion in Germany and the United States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taran, Patrick A. and Geromini, Eduardo (2003) Globalization, Labour and Migration: Protection is Paramount, Perspectives on Labour Migration 3E, International Migration Programme. Geneva: International Labour Office.Google Scholar
Toebes, Brigit C. A. (1999) The Right to Health as a Human Right in International Law. Antwerpen: Intersentia.Google Scholar
Van Eeckout, Laetitia (2008) ‘Régularisation: le Travail, un Espoir pour les Sans-Papiers’, Le Mond 8 January. Available at: www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2008/01/08/regularisation-le-travail-un-espoir-pour-les-sans-papiers_996908_3224.html (accessed 29 March 2011).Google Scholar