Thursday, July 9, 2015
S12 (13 rue de l'Université)
Litigation for Roma Rights is on the rise in Europe, with major decisions about school desegregation, forced evictions and deportations, and police violence coming down from the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights. Yet, beyond the small community of plaintiffs in these cases, there has been little mobilization among the Roma for legal rights. This paper investigates why many Roma have not developed a strong right consciousness, and why the ECJ and ECtHR victories have not ignited a larger social movement for Roma Rights. Drawing on the rights mobilization literature about minorities more broadly, and on the Roma’s specific historical and contemporary experiences of the state, I argue that the limited rights mobilization among the Roma reflects their on-going experiences of the state as adversary. The problematic relationship between the state and the Roma, such as the highly publicized removal of Roma children from their families because they did not “look Roma” in 2013, makes the Roma highly suspicious of the efficacy of legal action. At the same time, state actors, who courts depend on to enforce rulings, continue to benefit more from their anti-Roma actions than from treating the Roma with equality. In this context, developing rights consciousness requires special attention to the fact that many Roma find themselves “up against the law” feeling powerless in a legal system that almost always is punishing them.
