Immigration detention : the fundamental interdependence of the legal and psychosocial dimensions in protect-ing the human rights of detained migrants

Abstract

This paper is a journey through a rigorous and detailed analysis of a very topical phenomenon that affects millions of people all over the world: violations of the human rights of detained migrants. The stages of this journey start with a global and regional overview, within the Council of Europe, of the phenomenon in question, relying on the most recent reliable sources, and then continue with an analysis from a legal point of view, especially thanks to the study of important judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, and then from a psychological and social point of view, with the contribution of an adequate literature. Some countries will be examined in detail in order to avoid a disproportionate generalisation and to respect the presence of individual geopolitical factors. This research aims to demonstrate the presence, vastness and dangerousness of this phenomenon and, at the same time, offer the hypothesis of an alternative method to strengthen the protection of the human rights of detained migrants at the international level, namely that based on the interdependence between the legal and psychosocial dimensions when analysing and judging on cases of this kind.