The immigration of people from developing countries has become a major problem for EU countries, as a large proportion of them have not wanted to adapt to the European way of life. Regarding Eastern EU countries, it must also be noted that Russia seeks to use people of developing country backgrounds as a tool of hybrid warfare by transporting them to its own or Belarus's eastern border to attempt to cross into the West.
For this reason, Finland has enacted a temporary border security law, based on which the border with Russia has been closed to traffic. Therefore, it was interesting to note that former European Court of Human Rights judge Pauliine Koskelo commented on the ongoing parliamentary debate about extending Finland’s border security law.
According to the judge, it is evident "that with respect to border situations, the only scenario considered in interpretive practice is that anyone attempting to cross the border outside normal passport control, appearing to be a 'civilian', is a potential asylum seeker who must be allowed into the country so that they have an opportunity to seek asylum. The question is, how far can such an approach based on a single fundamental assumption — one that leaves no room for, for example, the protection of national security — be extended?"
She continued that "this alone should require that the contracting state retains a real possibility to repel actions by a third state that would unlawfully funnel unknown people with unknown intentions across its border... The idea that the need to protect national security should have no significance even when a foreign state begins to 'push' unknown individuals across the border — while at the same time controlling who these people are, how many there are, where they may come from, what their intentions are, and the risk situation posed on their side of the border — seems difficult to defend, especially if there are signs of hostile state motives behind the circumstances."
She concluded her view by stating that "if even in such a scenario the contracting state would have to allow free entry to anyone solely on the basis that they declare themselves as asylum seekers or create a first impression suggesting so, it could be reasonably assessed that the limits of interpretative acceptability would be seriously tested."
Koskelo’s view matches my own and undoubtedly also that of almost all other people. Therefore, it is astonishing that there are still people in Finland who seem to firmly believe that Vladimir Putin has the right to push as many people as he wishes across the Finnish border, simply because international human rights treaties could be interpreted that way. Not long ago, even Finland's Constitutional Law Committee included three such individuals: one from the Left Alliance, one from the Greens, and one from the Social Democrats.
Previous thoughts on the same topic:
