Asylum in Italy between human rights and the Constitution : the abolition of the ‘humanitarian protection’ under Decree-Law n. 113/2018

Abstract

Placed in the realm of human rights research, this thesis aims at assessing the abolition under Decree- Law n. 113/2018 of the Italian ‘humanitarian protection’ formerly provided under art. 5(6) of the Consolidated Immigration Act, on the basis of international human rights standards, EU law and constitutional fundamental rights. In the first part, it provides an overview of the recent Italian history of immigration and asylum, outlining the socio-political context in which the reform is inscribed. The second part addresses the multi-level legal framework on international protection, taking into consideration the 1951 Refugee Convention, the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights and EU law within a comparative legal assessment that identifies Italy’s core obligation related to the protection of aliens, highlighting the distinctiveness of the ‘humanitarian protection’. The core of the analysis, in the third part, grounds the ‘humanitarian protection’ within the right of asylum enshrined in art. 10(3) of the Italian Constitution. After pointing at formal and procedural flaws of D.L. n. 113/2018 through the Constitutional Court’s case-law, the case-study focuses on the assessment of art. 1 of the decree, assessing comparatively the former open-ended ‘humanitarian protection’ with the new strict categorization of cases eligible for protection. Keywords: human rights, D.L. n. 113/2018, humanitarian protection, Italian Constitution