Human Rights Have Snowballed Into Absurdity 

Is polygamy a human right? This is the question currently being pondered by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg. The case has been brought by a Yemeni refugee, Khaled Al-Anesi, a lawyer who was granted asylum in the Netherlands following the Arab Spring. He arrived in the country with his first wife and their eight children, deciding not to request reunification with his second and third wives, as polygamy is illegal under Dutch law. He did, however, demand that the five children he had with his other wives join him in the Netherlands. At this point, the Dutch government refused, noting that the children were perfectly safe with their mothers in Turkey, where they enjoyed refugee status. 

It sounds as though the Dutch authorities made every attempt to be as accommodating as possible to Al-Anesi’s family within the bounds of the law. They suggested that he divorce his other two wives, in order to facilitate reunification with his children. But this was apparently unacceptable to Al-Anesi, who is now suing the Netherlands for violating his right to enjoy a family life. As the European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ) points out, this is likely an attempt to bring over his other wives by proxy: “If the mothers’ family reunification is requested by their minor children, and not by the husband, it cannot be refused on the grounds of polygamy. The ban would then be circumvented thanks to human rights.” 

This case poses a number of questions. Will so-called human rights be expected to override Dutch law? Should the Netherlands and every other European country where polygamy is illegal be forced to recognise marriages between multiple individuals? To what extent are we willing to cede national sovereignty to unelected judges in Strasbourg? 

It also points to an even larger issue. As in so many cases we’ve seen recently, the asylum system in place across Western countries leaves itself woefully open to abuse. Applicants are able to make all sorts of outrageous demands in the name of ‘human rights,’ even when it should be clear to any outside observer that the host country is merely being rinsed for all it has. The Al-Anesi case is a perfect example of this. Here we have a man who sought and was given refuge in the Netherlands. The Dutch state provided him, his wife and eight children with a far higher standard of living and safety than he would have received in his home country of Yemen. It even tried to open the door to bringing five more of his children to enjoy that same quality of life in the Netherlands. And yet Al-Anesi remains entirely ungrateful. Instead of recognising that he has decided to live in a country with different norms, values, and laws to his own, he seeks to impose foreign customs on his new home. 

This kind of abuse has become frustratingly widespread. Just look at some of the supposed human-rights violations that have stopped foreign criminals from being deported—from a criminal’s child identifying as transgender, to being an alcoholic, to being in France. And the situation is unlikely to improve any time soon. Germany’s foreign minister has recently admitted that it’s unlikely many failed asylum seekers will be deported back to Syria, even though the civil war that drove all those refugees to Europe in the first place is now over. 

Some migrants have even increased their chances of being granted asylum by committing crimes. Earlier this year, a UK judge ruled that a Pakistani paedophile, who was caught preying on “barely pubescent girls,” could not be deported because his crimes could cause him “significant difficulties” in Pakistan. A similar decision was made in February, when a judge decided that a convicted paedophile from Zimbabwe would face “substantial hostility” in his home country, because of his “criminal record for child sex offences.” Therefore, he would have to remain in the UK, which, as we’ve learnt from the grooming-gangs scandal, takes a more lenient view of child predators. UK judges allowed a sex offender to remain despite convictions for “outraging public decency” and exposure, on the basis that his conduct would likely expose him to ill-treatment if returned to Afghanistan. And in a separate case, a rapist could not be deported to Jamaica because his record was so extensive that he would be denied witness-protection, leaving him at risk from gangs. In other words, he could not be deported because he had committed too many crimes. 

In the mind of the average person, the phrase ‘asylum seeker’ evokes images of innocent civilians, often women and children, fleeing from unimaginable danger in their home countries—war, genocide, religious or political persecution. In the same way, ‘human rights’ carries connotations of justice and morality. To breach someone’s human rights is considered the gravest possible crime. But both of these concepts have been abused and perverted. Their definitions are now so broad that practically any reason for asylum can be considered valid, and human-rights claims that are preposterously tenuous are being taken seriously. Protections that should be reserved for genuine cases of inhumane treatment are being dished out to practically anyone who asks. 

Europe’s generosity has become a club to beat it with. The expectation is that, if an individual’s rights are not being adequately protected in one country, then another country must step in and take on this role. The logic of our asylum systems assumes that Europe has a unique responsibility to house the entire world. We are expected to open our borders to anyone who does not enjoy the same living standards as we do in the West. As it stands, there is theoretically no limit to the number of people who could claim asylum in Europe. And, given that much of the world is yet to achieve the same levels of development and freedom as we have, this turns a large fraction of the global population into potential refugees. As such, the scope of asylum has ballooned beyond what any sane person could consider reasonable. 

Few other governments outside of Europe see it as their responsibility to ensure that the rights of every person on the planet are protected and enforced. The West is unique in its belief that it alone shoulders the burden of policing the world’s conscience. If Europe wants to solve its mass migration crisis, we will need to restructure our entire asylum system and make granting refugee status the exception rather than the rule. To do this, we must grapple with the very concept of human rights. This means leaving the ECtHR and ripping up the European Convention on Human Rights. But it also means having some no doubt uncomfortable conversations about what human rights entail and coming to terms with the fact that our interpretation of this concept has snowballed out of control. It is not a human-rights violation to deport a foreign criminal in order to keep the public safe. Nor is it a breach of human rights for a country not to recognise polygamy. 

The idea of universal human rights was borne out of notions of fairness and justice. What we see today is neither fair nor just. Europe has instead developed a model that rewards scroungers, opportunists, and even outright criminals. This entire system needs a radical overhaul.