Quelle: globaldetentionproject.org

About the Global Detention Project

Aims

The Global Detention Project (GDP) is an inter-disciplinary research initiative that investigates the role detention plays in states’ responses to global migration, with a special focus on the policies and physical infrastructures of detention. The project is based at the Graduate Institute’s Programme for the Study of Global Migration and has received financial support from the Open Society Foundations, Zennstrom Philanthropies, the Swiss Network for International Studies, and the Geneva International Academic Network.

Migration-related detention is the practice of detaining—typically on administrative (as opposed to criminal) grounds—asylum seekers and irregular immigrants until they can be deported, their identities established, or their claims adjudicated. Because many national legal systems do not have clear rules for administrative detention, migration detainees often face legal uncertainties, including lack of access to the outside world, limited possibilities of challenging detention through the courts, and/or absence of limitations on the duration of detention.

To assess the growth and evolution of detention institutions, project researchers are creating a comprehensive database of detention sites that categorises detention facilities along several dimensions, including security level, bureaucratic chain of command, facility type (is a given site an exposed camp, a dedicated migrant detention facility, or a common prison), spatial segregation (are there separate cells for criminals and administrative detainees, for women and men), and size. This data is gradually being ported to the GDP website in the form of maps, lists, and country profiles. Eventually, the project intends to make the entire database fully interactive with the website.

Project researchers also assess the legal frameworks of this practice, in both international and domestic law. Researchers have undertaken an overall assessment of international law as it pertains to migration-related detention and begun profiling domestic policies and legal guarantees as part of a longer-term effort to assess the impact of law on detention practices and the degree to which the treatment of detaineess conforms with international commitments.

Ultimately, the GDP’s goals are threefold: 1) to provide researchers, advocates, and journalists with a measurable and regularly updated baseline for analysing the growth and evolution of detention practices and policies; 2) to encourage scholarship in this often under-studied aspect of the immigration phenomenon; and 3) to facilitate accountability and transparency in the treatment of detainees.

Origins

The GDP began as a limited-term research project based at the Graduate Institute’s Political Science Department that was aimed at assessing the breadth of migrant detention practices across the globe. The project was initiated in October 2006 with financial support from the Geneva International Academic Network (GIAN), a Swiss government-supported foundation that funded collaborative work between Geneva-based academic institutions and international organizations. The GIAN-funded research received guidance from an advisory group made up of representatives from several academic institutions, international organizations, and nongovernmental organizations, including the University of Geneva’s University Center for International Humanitarian Law, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Labor Office, the International Organization for Migration, and the International Detention Coalition. For more information about the project’s stakeholders, please visit the web site of the Geneva International Academic Network.

Project Team

• Michael Flynn: Founder and Project Coordinator
• Mariette Grange: Senior Researcher
• Izabella Majcher: Research Assistant
• David Sylvan: Adviser, data management
• Vincent Chetail: Adviser, legal research
• Thomas Messerli: Webmaster

Former interns and researchers: Bassiar Ali, Cecilia Cannon, Theo Coonen, Christina Fialho, Claudie Fioroni, Anette Havardsen Skaar, Aiko Holvikivi, Kelsey Jost-Creegan, Adrian Klocke, Alexandra Lamb, Christa Lopez, Alexander MacKinnon, Luke McCallin, Alix Nasri, Navitri Putri Guillaume, Isabel Ricupero, Jonathan Ruta, Marizen Santos, Giulia Soldan, and Yvette Stephens.