Taking stock of Part III

This chapter takes stock of what was discussed in Part III of this book, which described how two parallel global trends - the rise of a universal right to asylum and the growing commitment to universal and individual accountability for international crimes - gave rise to a new class of undesirable but unremovable migrants: migrants suspected of having committed international crimes. These more principled, universal grounds for becoming undesirable but unremovable - compared to undesirable but unremovable migrants convicted of domestic crimes - are accompanied by more ambiguity around the involvement in crimes, which in most cases is never assessed in a criminal court. The way states handle undesirable but unremovable migrants accused of international crimes reveals that, ultimately, their actions are in most cases driven by self-interest. This is particularly evident in their engagement with the international criminal courts and tribunals, but also in how some states deal with 1F-excluded individuals.