An Analytical Study of Turkish Immigrants and Other Foreigners in the United Kingdom in Terms of the Philosophy of the Council of Europe


Creative Commons License

Karaman Z. T.

AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH, vol.2, no.3, pp.27-40, 2012 (Peer-Reviewed Journal)

Abstract

Abstract
This research on “Foreigners and Turkish Immigrants in the United Kingdom(UK) in terms of the Philosophy of Council of Europe” was based on the comparison, and evaluation of consistency, between the philosophy, on which the “Convention on the Participation of Foreigners in Public Life at Local Level” (a Convention of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe which has the status of an international and regional organization with some 47 members as of 2011 and of which the UK is also a member)is based, and the international migration strategy practice in the United Kingdom. The convention concerned, determines the issues regarding the formation of public instruments that provides those people who live in a country and have non-native status in that country but have equal access as natives to individual and social rights that will ensure visibility in public life “equal to that of the citizens of the target country concerned”. Moreover, the Council of Europe relates its philosophical approach concerning settled foreigners to the basic principle “if they have obligations, they should also have rights” within the local level where they are settled. In this study, this issue has been specifically evaluated in the context of the political rights of foreigners who have emigrated from Turkey into the UK and the sustainability of the State. In addition, the practices “towards foreign settlers” by Turkey, which is again a member of the Council of Europe and has gradually become a country to which foreigners immigrate, and its future scenario have been examined in terms of the Convention concerned. I would like to thank Professor John Sedgwick from the London Metropolitan University Centre for International Business and Sustainability, who helped me with the formation of the framework of this study, and all the opinion leaders who contributed to the development of the content of the study in compliance with its aim by attending the interviews.