Quasi (-social) Citizenship, the Common Travel Area, and the Fragmented Protection of Employment Rights in the United Kingdom after Brexit

IF 1.1 Q2 LAW
Niall O'Connor
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Abstract

Irish citizens living in the United Kingdom (UK) enjoy a privileged immigration status, which in turn facilitates access to a number of economic and social rights, perhaps most importantly a right to—and thereby rights in—work. European Union (EU) law played an important role in facilitating the latter, but with freedom of movement and the right to work of Irish citizens now dependent on the Common Travel Area (CTA) and associated legislative protections. This article argues that the CTA constitutes a workers’ rights ‘intervention’, which necessitates a clearer articulation of how this instrument fits within the wider context of post-Brexit UK employment law, including the rights deriving from the withdrawal arrangements governing the UK's departure from the EU. There are a number of asymmetries in the CTA that undermine its value as an employment rights conduit. Brexit, it is argued, has led to further fragmentation of the category of ‘Irish citizen’ in the UK, despite the purported recent recognition of such citizens as a distinct class within UK immigration law. More significantly, the CTA lacks normative purpose, and is a rather weak employment law instrument, in that it represents no more than a facilitation of national legislative intervention to ensure (roughly) equivalent treatment between British and Irish citizens in matters of employment (among other economic and social rights). The current CTA arrangements are thereby devoid of any underpinning (social) objectives or values and lack explicit recognition of their role as a facilitator of access to fundamental economic and social rights. Non-political, and rights-based conceptions of social citizenship are suggested as potential normative groundings for the CTA and derived (employment) rights in the absence of the protective framework offered by EU free movement and labour law.
英国脱欧后的准(社会)公民身份、共同旅行区和分散的就业权利保护
居住在联合王国(UK)的爱尔兰公民享有优越的移民身份,这反过来又为他们获得一系列经济和社会权利提供了便利,其中最重要的可能是工作权。欧盟(EU)法律在促进后者方面发挥了重要作用,但爱尔兰公民的迁徙自由和工作权利现在取决于共同旅行区(CTA)和相关的法律保护。本文认为,《共同旅行区协议》构成了对工人权利的 "干预",因此有必要更清晰地阐明该文书如何与英国脱欧后就业法的大背景相适应,包括英国脱欧的退欧安排所带来的权利。CTA 中存在一些不对称现象,削弱了其作为就业权利渠道的价值。有观点认为,英国脱欧导致了英国 "爱尔兰公民 "类别的进一步分裂,尽管英国移民法最近声称承认爱尔兰公民是一个独特的类别。更重要的是,CTA 缺乏规范性目的,是一个相当薄弱的就业法律文书,因为它不过是促进国家立法干预,以确保英国和爱尔兰公民在就业问题(以及其他经济和社会权利)上(大致)享有同等待遇。因此,目前的 CTA 安排没有任何基本的(社会)目标或价值观,也没有明确承认其作为获得基本经济和社会权利的促进者的作用。在缺乏欧盟自由流动和劳动法所提供的保护框架的情况下,我们提出了非政治和基于权利的社会公民概念,作为 CTA 和衍生(就业)权利的潜在规范基础。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
1.60
自引率
28.60%
发文量
29
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