Economic migrants and extra-European practices: considerations about the minimum guarantees of treatment

The economic migrant does not see in his favour a system of protection that can be compared to that recognized for refugees and asylum seekers. This is not a superficial question given the current dif- ficulty in drawing a clear separation between the reasons that push cer- tain people to leave their land. The resulting classification of migrants in the group of refugees pushes to seek a legal regime with less specific regulations and bilateral reception agreements. While the European model shows a consolidated picture at a regional level, the situation in the rest of the world is quite different, also considering the position of the main immigration countries, such as the USA or Russia, and the Asian reception models. Two kinds of problems appear in the analysis of legal framework: the discretion of the country’s legislation in decid- ing who has the right to enter and the immediate subsequent treat- ment of migrants once they have reached their destination. Often peo- ple find it difficult to provide essential services or suffer discrimination, in addition to situations at home that cannot consent to return, albeit requirements asked by international law for the return. The contribu- tion aims to examine the existing rules of a minimum regime of inter- national law for migrants