Freedom of movement
Freedom of movement, mobility rights, or the right to travel is a human rights concept encompassing the right of individuals to travel from place to place within the territory of a country, and to leave the country and return to it. The right includes not only visiting places, but changing the place where the individual resides or works.
Such a right is provided in the constitutions of numerous states, and in documents reflecting norms of international law. For example, Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights asserts that:
- "Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state."
- "Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country."
Common restrictions
Restrictions on international travel on people are commonplace. Within countries, freedom of travel is often more limited for minors, and penal law can modify this right as it applies to persons charged with or convicted of crimes. In some countries, freedom of movement has historically been limited for women, and for members of disfavored racial and social groups. States may depart from their usual stance on this issue for legal, political, humanitarian, and/or other reasons. For example, a nation that is generally permissive with respect to entrance by its non-nationals, ingress by its nationals, and/or internal travel by persons already present may perceive a need to restrict one or more of those rights during time of war, or a nation with stringent immigration policies may permit the temporary or indefinite admission of persons displaced from a conflict zone in a neighboring country.National and/or regional economic policies exerting a "chilling effect" on or otherwise deterring the international and/or intra-national movement of persons may include the following:
- Nationally and/or regionally legislated minimum-wage barriers : When an authority sets a minimum wage for a jurisdiction, it prevents employers in that jurisdiction from profitably hiring would-be workers whose maximum productivity per unit time under local conditions is less than the local minimum wage. It thereby excludes those workers from participation in the jurisdiction's labor market and removes the associated incentive for workers living in lower-wage areas to move or otherwise travel to the jurisdiction.
- Requirements that a jurisdiction's residents carry official documents and produce them on domestic authorities' demand:
- Local/regional barriers to housebuilding and therefore settlement in particular districts : By reducing the supply of new housing in a jurisdiction, such policies inflate the price of both newly- and already-constructed housing and thereby shrink the set of persons financially able to immigrate.
- Motor-vehicle road and highway design featuring little or no pedestrian and/or bicycle access: In the design and development of transportation infrastructure, an exclusive or excessive focus on motor-vehicle travel disproportionally facilitates employment-related travel by persons who can afford to obtain a motor vehicle and who are able to operate it or hire a driver. Some motor-vehicle infrastructure designs actively impede pedestrian and bicycle travel by physically blocking it or routing it to overlap with moderate- to high-speed motor-vehicle traffic in a manner increasing the frequency and average severity of collisions.
Freedom of movement between private properties
Parents or other legal guardians are typically able to restrict the movements of minor children under their care, and of other adults who have been legally deemed incompetent to govern their own movement. Employers may legally set some restrictions on the movements of employees, and terminate employment if those restrictions are breached.
Domestic restrictions
Governments may generally sharply restrict the freedom of movement of persons who have been convicted of crimes, most conspicuously in the context of imprisonment. Restrictions may also be placed on convicted criminals who are on probation or have been released on parole. Persons who have been charged with crimes and have been released on bail may also be prohibited from traveling. A material witness may also be denied the right to travel.Though travelling to and from countries is generally permitted, most governments restrict the length of time that temporary visitors may stay in the country. This can be dependent on country of citizenship and country travelled to among other factors. In some instances, indefinite stay may be allowed on humanitarian grounds, but in most other cases, stay is generally limited. One notable exception to this is the free movement of people in the European Union, where citizens of any country in the EU and EFTA generally enjoy indefinite stay in other EU/EFTA countries.
Furthermore, restrictions on the right to relocate or live in certain areas of a country have been imposed in several countries, most prominently China.
In a child custody dispute, a court may place restrictions on the movement of a minor child, thereby restricting the ability of the parents of that child to travel with their child.
Entrance restrictions in certain countries
The Visa Restrictions Index ranks countries based on the number of other countries its citizens are free to enter without visa. Most countries in the world require visas or some other form of entrance permit for non-citizens to enter their territory. Those who enter countries in defiance of regulations requiring such documentation are often subject to imprisonment or deportation.Exit restrictions in certain countries
Most countries require that their citizens leave the country on a valid passport, travel document issued by an international organization or, in some cases, identification document. Conditions of issuance and the governments' authority to deny issuance of a passport vary from country to country.Under certain circumstances, countries may issue travel documents to aliens, that is, to persons other than their own citizens.
Having a passport issued does not guarantee the right to exit the country. A person may be prohibited to exit a country on a number of reasons, such as being under investigation as a suspect, serving a criminal sentence, being a debtor in default, or posing a threat to national security. This applies to aliens as well.
In some countries prohibition to leave may take the form of revocation of a previously issued passport. For example, the United States of America may revoke passports at will.
Some countries, such as the former Soviet Union, further required that their citizens, and sometimes foreign travelers, obtain an exit visa to be allowed to leave the country.
Currently, some countries require that foreign citizens have valid visas upon leaving the country if they needed one to enter. For example, a person who overstayed a visa in Czech Republic may need to obtain an exit visa. In Russia, the inconvenience goes even further as the legislation there does not formally recognize residency permits as valid visas; thus, foreign citizens lawfully residing in Russia need to obtain "exit-entry" visas in order to do a trip abroad. This, in particular, affects foreign students, whose original entry visas expire by the time they return home.
Citizens of the People's Republic of China who are residents of the mainland are required to apply for exit and entry endorsements in order to enter the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau. Since 2016, residents of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region have been required to deposit their passports with the police. Each trip abroad must be approved by the government, which is more difficult for members of the Uyghur ethnic group.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar require all resident foreigners, but not citizens, to obtain an exit visa before leaving the country.
History
Europe
When Augustus established the Roman Empire in 27 BC, he assumed monarchical powers over the new Roman province of Egypt and was able to prohibit senators from traveling there without his permission. However, Augustus would also allow more liberty to travel at times. During a famine in 6 AD, he attempted to relieve strain on the food supply by granting senators the liberty to leave Rome and to travel to wherever they wished.In England, in 1215, the right to travel was enshrined in Article 42 of the Magna Carta:
In the Holy Roman Empire, a measure instituted by Joseph II in 1781 permitted serfs freedom of movement.
The serfs of the Russian Empire were not given their personal freedom until Alexander II's Edict of Emancipation of 1861. At the time, most of the inhabitants of Russia, not only the serfs but also townsmen and merchants, did not have freedom of movement and were confined to their places of residence.
United Nations Declaration
After the end of hostilities in World War II, the United Nations was established on 24 October 1945. The new international organization recognized the importance of freedom of movement through documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the U.N. General Assembly, reads,Article 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights incorporates this right into treaty law:
The ICCPR entered into force for the initial ratifying states on 23 March 1976, and for additional states following their ratification. In 1999, the U.N. Human Rights Committee, which is charged with interpreting the treaty, issued its guidelines for Article 12 of the ICCPR in its "General Comment No. 27: Freedom of Movement".
While the treaty sets out the freedom of movement in broad and absolute terms, part four of Article 12 of the ICCPR admits that these freedoms may be restricted for a variety of reasons in the public interest. This clause is often cited to justify a wide variety of movement restrictions by almost every country that is party to it.