Readmission agreements and human rights considerations: Is Turkey safe enough?

In today's politics the relation between human rights and national security can be described as a tug of war. The more measures are taken for security concerns, the less focus is given to the human rights concerns. One of the most controversial area which cause this dilemma is the migration control. As a result of the securitization of migration in Europe, EU adopted more preventive migration policy, which aims at transferring the responsibility of migration control to outside the EU. As a tool of this externalisation policy, the EU signed many readmission agreements to be able to return irregular migrants to their country of origin or third countries. Those readmission agreements are highly criticized by the NGOs for undermining the refugee protection. A recent readmission agreement between Turkey and EU has been signed in December 2013. When it is taken into account that majority of the irregular migrants directed to EU pass through Turkey from the countries which are not respectful to fundamental rights, the implications of the readmission agreement between Turkey and EU worth to examine. Accordingly this study examines the compatibility of readmission agreements with the human rights obligations and to what degree the international humanitarian and refugee protection norms are considered when negotiating and implementing EU readmission agreements. Keywords: Irregular Migration, Readmission agreements, externalization, human rights, European Union, Turkey