Mr. Daniele Ruggiu, University of Padua, Italy
Analyzing the concept of freedom of movement both in accordance with the norms of the European Convention of Human Rights and in the case law of the Court of Strasbourg, it has emerged that there are some malfunctions in the regulation and control of the migratory phenomena in the European context that are structural and inevitable. This paper intends to show how the absence of the right of immigration can create some malfunctions in the Human Rights legal system and how this is connected with our concept of identity. In fact, identity is also the outcome of some more or less formalized processes as a normative framework existing in a specific community. Human Rights contribute to creating these normative frameworks. Indeed, we can say that inasmuch as we identify ourselves with the liberal-democratic regimes which form our communities, the characteristic institutions of such regimes represent a fundamental reference for the processes of identity building of both the community as well as of the individuals forming it. In a context of multilevel constitutionalism the influence that international institutions and treaties permits Human Rights to enter into the formalized processes of identity building. The processes contributing to the self-comprehension of a political community need the formal structures of identity building, such as citizenship and freedom of movement, especially in the face of the global migratory phenomena, to operate correctly. From that point of view malfunctions in the formal structures cannot but have effects on the same processes of identity building. The failure of our migration control system and the impossibility of empowering Human Rights in the field of mobility reveals an enormous conceptual short-circuit in the structure of liberal countries. This conceptual short-circuit is the lack of the concept of “Other” in our “Self” building processes.
