Il diritto di asilo nell'area euro-mediterranea: tra sovranità territoriale e diritti umani

The evolution of the international community currently seems to alternate progressive impulses towards greater protection of human rights and sudden fallout in the traditional concept of territorial sovereignty. In a stage characterized by an increasingly restrictive admission of foreign nationals within the borders of the State and collective expulsions, what is the scope of the secular institution of asylum? Whether, on the one hand, the right of asylum is one of the state powers to freely adjust the entry and stay of aliens on its territory, considered as a corollary of territorial sovereignty, from the viewpoint of the individual it would constitute a means of further guarantee for fundamental rights. From this dilemma between state interest and human rights the present study will move to trace a possible balance between the protection of national security and the protection of human rights in one of the regions most affected by international migrations, like the euro-Mediterranean region. For these reasons, the hypothesis in this dissertation is the existence of a right of individuals to be granted asylum under International Human Rights and Refugee Law. The premise for this research is necessarily the assertion that individuals may be, even though only in part, subjects of International Law, as right holders vis-a-vis States. In conclusion, it is noted that attempts to claim a fundamental right to asylum, where have not engendered ad hoc set of laws, standing in provisions “still confused and often rudimentary”, they have contributed to conceive the right to asylum as a human right of subsidiary nature, likely to complete other inalienable rights, such as the right to life and physical integrity.