Asylum and State Sovereignty

Comparing the asylum policies of three Western states, this article argues against two claims raised in recent writings on international migration: that states' capacity of controlling unwanted migration is declining; and that such diminished control capacity is due to an international human rights regime restricting states' discretion over the admission and expulsion of aliens. This comparison suggests that there is an increasing willingness and capacity of states to control mass asylum seeking. State constraints in asylum policy arise more from domestic than from international legal norms. Asylum policies are everywhere shaped by the two increasingly conflicting principles of liberal nation-states: popular sovereignty and the protection of human rights.