This chapter focuses on the detention of asylum-seekers, a phenomenon that may seem to some to be almost a contradiction in terms. Social convention in many societies has frequently dictated that a guest or a stranger with no hostile intent, or in a condition of distress, should be met with hospitality rather than the prospect of incarceration. The signing of the Convention and the humanitarian basis of much international law do not, however, necessarily influence the thinking of government officials, politicians and immigration officers. Before accepting the British government’s right to detain asylum-seekers under the detention provisions of the Immigration Act of 1971 as unproblematic, it is worth making a few references to the issue of detention in international and comparative law.
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