International migration law…a new pattern in Arab thought policy

In light of the rise of the global human rights discourse, states are no longer able to determine the status of foreign residents based on their own sovereign vision, as legal and moral restrictions have increased that require them to respect the rights of migrants and guarantee their dignity. Hence, the transformation of the migrant from a “regulatory subject” to a “human rights actor” in the contemporary international system represents a fundamental turning point that resulted in the need to establish what could be called international migration law, an emerging legal branch that interacts with human rights and humanitarian law, and is independent of them at the same time.

In this context, the book “International Migration Law” by researcher Abdul Samad Al-Abbasi, published by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, came to constitute a qualitative addition to the Arab legal library, in a field that has not yet received the study and consolidation it deserves.

The book spanned 264 pages, including an executive summary, an introduction, three chapters, and a comprehensive conclusion, as well as references, indexes, and explanatory tables. However, its real value goes beyond the form and approach, to building a new theoretical framework for understanding the complex relationship between international migration and international law, and to defending the legitimacy of considering this field as an independent branch of law, based on the principles of human dignity and human rights, and going beyond the limits of the traditional approach that divided people into “citizens” and “foreigners.”

Scarcity of rooting and diversity of approaches

Al-Abbasi starts from the central premise that the phenomenon of international migration is no longer a secondary or incidental matter in international relations, but rather has turned into a pressing factor that reshapes the structure of international law itself. With the increasing complexity of migrants’ situations, the diversity of their categories, and the overlapping of economic, social, humanitarian and political dimensions, the classical rules regulating the status of foreigners have become insufficient and even unable to keep up with the new reality. Migration today is not just the movement of individuals between borders, but rather an expression of a global dynamic that touches the essence of national sovereignty, and tests the ability of states to reconcile their internal interests with their international human rights obligations.

The book shows that this new field of knowledge is still poorly written at the Arab and international levels. Although immigration has become one of the most prominent issues in political and research discourse, the academic works that have dealt with it from a purely legal angle remain very limited, and available studies are often limited to addressing the status of foreigners or issues of nationality or political asylum, without building an integrated system that regulates the legal relations arising from the migration movement.

In his critical presentation of the path of this field, Al-Abbasi monitors four main trends in previous literature:

• A comprehensive trend that combined legal, political and social approaches, without a clear distinction between categories of migrants and refugees.
• A documentary trend was limited to compiling international instruments and treaties related to migration, without an attempt to build a theoretical system that explains them.
• A collective academic trend represented by a multi-titled literature on “international migration law”, but it lacked methodological coherence.
• Itijah presented a more mature vision of this law as an independent subsystem, highlighting the positive impact of regular migration and the role of international organizations in its legalization.

However, Al-Abbasi noted that these works – despite their importance – were not free from methodological drawbacks, the most prominent of which are mixing the legal status between the migrant and the refugee, ignoring the cultural dimension, and overlooking the specificity of labor migration, which represents the overwhelming majority of human movements across borders. He also points out that Arab attempts remained sporadic, dealing with migration issues within private international law or in the context of development studies, without formulating a coherent theory that places it within a comprehensive legal framework.

The book discusses the major difficulties facing the researcher in this field, most notably the absence of a unified legal code that can be relied upon. Sources related to international migration are distributed among bilateral and multilateral agreements, international conventions, regional and national legislation, in addition to unwritten international customs and practices. This pluralism makes the researcher’s task similar to trying to extract an underlying logic from among fragmented and sometimes conflicting texts, which requires a precise interpretive and jurisprudential effort to deduce the regulating pattern between them.

Despite these challenges, Al-Abbasi’s book fills a void in the Arab library, presenting a treatment that combines comparative jurisprudential analysis and systematic educational presentation. In it, he relied on various approaches that combine the socio-legal approach and the comparative and inductive approach, in addition to employing modern analytical tools to monitor concepts and their development, including the use of artificial intelligence techniques in analyzing global research terms and trends. Thus, the work presents a model of integration between legal analysis and the cognitive dimension, far from the repetitive pattern prevalent in general human rights books.

Migration is not a unidirectional movement, but rather a mutual relationship between sending, receiving and transit countries, which requires all parties to develop integrated legal cooperation mechanisms.

The internal structure and contents of the chapters

The book is built on three interconnected chaptersFor withA coordinateA gradedFrom rooting to application.

The first chapter deals with the theoretical framework of the concept of international migration law, tracing the development of the idea from ancient times until its modern formation, to demonstrate that recognition of the existence of this legal branch is not based on pure academic diligence, but rather on continuous historical development that has produced a cognitive and social base that justifies its independence.

The second chapter focuses on the sources of this law, analyzing international and regional agreements and relevant customary and national legislation, and specifying the scope of its application in time, place and persons. Migrants – not refugees or displaced persons – constitute the basic scope of this law, which covers all stages of the journey, from the country of origin to transit and then settlement in the country of destination.

The third chapter addresses the general principles founding international migration law, most notably the principle of equality and non-discrimination, while invoking the principle of “sovereign exception,” which gives states the right to restrict the movement of individuals for security or economic reasons. This chapter concludes with an analysis of the practical rights that migrants should enjoy, such as the right to work, education and health care, as obligations of states in the light of international law.

WaqdIn the conclusion of his book, M. Al-Abbasi presents a decisive thesis, which states that international migration law has passed the stage of skepticismTo the stage of crystallization, and today it has a tonicAn independent legal branch died outIt has its own subject, sources, and institutions, although it remains in need of further unification and organization. The historical path of this law proves that it did not arise suddenly, but rather developedGradual tFrom within public international law, when states began to bear their responsibilities towards foreigners, then it crystallized with TOSThe human rights system that granted migrants a statusA legalIt’s clearA, all the way to EAt the current moment in which human rights issues are intertwined with economic, security and cultural issues.

The author believes that this legal branch is characterized by a dynamic and flexible nature that allows it to develop as migration patterns and needs change. Migration is not a unidirectional movement, but rather a mutual relationship between sending, receiving and transit countries, which requires all parties to develop integrated legal cooperation mechanisms. Hence the importance of adopting a global perspective based on the principle of common dignity rather than the narrow security approach that still controls the policies of many countries.

This work does not stop at the point of presentation or description, but seeks to establish a new Arab legal awareness of the issue of immigration. The author realizes that the Arab world is living a complex paradox: it is a source of immigration, a corridor for it, and a future for other immigrants at the same time. However, it has not yet crystallized an intellectual or legislative system capable of dealing with the phenomenon in its international dimension. Hence, the book represents a call to localize the concept in the Arab space, and to integrate migration studies into legal, political, and economic programs, as a tool for understanding contemporary globalization transformations.

The concept of sovereignty and migration

It can be said that Abdel Samad Al-Abbasi’s book attempts to establish a new stage in the study of the relationship between law, sovereignty, and immigration. It does not merely redescribe the phenomenon, but rather contributes to redefining the role of the state itself in a changing world, where absolute sovereignty is no longer able to justify excessive restrictions on the movement of people. International immigration law – as the author portrays it – is not just a compilation of agreements and treaties, but rather a system of values ​​and knowledge that restores the balance between the rights of individuals and the interests of states, and makes human dignity a starting point for any future legislation.

What this work presents goes beyond the purely legal dimension to reach a humanitarian and philosophical horizon, as it reminds that the human movement in search of work, safety, or dignity is not a crime, but rather an inherent right, and that international migration law seeks to regulate this right, not to confiscate it. Hence, this book represents an important intellectual addition to students of international law and to anyone interested in understanding the transformations of the modern world, where political borders intersect with questions of justice, freedom, and human rights.