The Promise and Pitfalls of Human Rights in Immigration Detention

This chapter explores the promise and pitfalls of human rights-based challenges to conditions in immigration detention in Greece. Drawing on over five years of research with a variety of organisations in Greece, from the National Preventive Mechanism to independent activist organisations, like the Border Violence Monitoring Network, we critically assess their limited impact on border control policies and set out a series of factors that undermine their efforts. Notwithstanding widespread international condemnation of the treatment of migrants and refugees in Greece, successive governments have managed to deflect criticism and remained indifferent to demands for change. What, under these conditions, can human rights achieve and how might further research into this field bring gross human rights violations to light and lead to more accountability?