Strangers and Estrangement – A Human Rights View

When defining a stranger (a foreigner) a negation was always included in the wording, meaning “the one who is not a citizen”, “the one who does not belong to a group” and this triggered the inexistence of a status (most of the times throughout history) or the attachment of a different status.At present, the protection of foreigners slipped from the general international law to the field of human rights and the exercise of conciliation of the sovereign competences of the states under the obligation of protection shifts the focus on the individual as a human being and gives new dimensions to traditional international rules.Hospitality, as a first reaction to the stranger supposes (in Kantian words) “not to be treated with hostility” and must be ensured by the political sovereign. Different degrees of protection available for different strangers (the migrant worker “free to leave any state”, the refugee that has to gain their condition by meeting the requirements of international regulations, the newly arrived or the longtime resident) are analyzed in the present paper.