Samenvatting

This article investigates the practice of immigration detention in the Netherlands, which has been fiercely criticized by international organizations and NGOs. It focuses in particular on three aspects of that measure: justification, implementation, and its use with regard to children. These issues are discussed in the light of human rights law, more in particular the case law by the European Court of Human Rights. It will be shown that this Court, by portraying immigration as a phenomenon implicating first and foremost territorial sovereignty, makes it difficult for immigrants’ individual interests to be addressed in substance, let alone to be perceived as rights. It is argued that the European Court of Justice in its application of EU law in this field is perhaps better suited to grant unwanted migrants their human rights than traditional human rights law has done so far.