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Report/Press release

Human Rights and Citizenship : the Case of Mexicain Migrants in Canada

Date

2003

Authors

Tanya Basok

Abstract

According to several scholars, the emergence of supra-national human rights institutions have caused a fundamental shift from national citizenship (a nation-based notion of rights) to post-national citizenship )a more individual-based universal conception of rights based on an international human rights regime). The notion of "postnational citizenship" has been challenged by many researchers who have argued that universal principles of human rights cannot be implemented and enforced without the consent of nation-states. Although nation-states have demonstrated a certain degree of respect for universal principles, their commitment to the ideas of post-national citizenship are based on a conception of citizenship rooted in membership in a particular bound community. The two notions of citizenship--one linked to inclusive universal rights and the other to membership in an exclusive community--are at times contradictory. Using the case of Mexican migrants working in Canada, this presentation will emphasize the difference between rights as a set of principles and laws on the one hand, and their actual practice and implementation on the other. Basok will argue that whereas legal access to economic rights has been extended to non-citizens residing in the national territory of sovereign nation-states, membership in the national community has often been denied to them, thus precluding them from exercising the rights to which they have been granted legal access.

Series title

Center for Comparative Immigration Studies working papers

Document number

wrkg72

Number of pages

23

Responsible institution

Center for Comparative Immigration Studies - University of California

Place published

San Diego

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Economic sectors

Agriculture and horticulture workers

Content types

Policy analysis

Target groups

Researchers and Unions

Regulation domains

Right to change employer, Right to choose place of residence, Right to unionize, Labour standards, Health and safety at work, Newcomers integration programs, Health care & social services, Access to permanent status, Family reunification, Right to liberty, and Right to dignity

Geographical focuses

Canada, Ontario, Alberta, México, Manitoba, Quebec, British Columbia, Other provinces, Federal, and Nova Scotia

Spheres of activity

Political science and Sociology

Languages

English