By Emma Jones
Santa in Sleigh by Flickr user wstera2 (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Okay, so of all the worries faced by a putative Father Christmas, international frontiers might not be the first that come to mind… but there’s no denying that the children’s favourite existentially-challenged Macroscopic Quantum Object has a seasonal job that tests freedom of movement to its limit.
Santa, of course, is a citizen of the world’s imagination – but as a migrant worker (or is he?) what must the man in the red suit do to avoid falling foul of travel restrictions on Christmas Eve?
Legally, Santa’s ability to act as the world’s postman would be largely determined by his citizenship, itself a matter of dispute (touched on in yesterday’s post). Santa Claus is usually assumed to hail from Lapland, which does not exist as a unified political entity. As a reindeer herder, Santa is perhaps most likely to be of Sami (or Saami) origin, belonging to ‘an indigenous people in north-western Europe with an estimated population of 70,000–80,000, living in a territory [Sápmi] that today is partitioned among four nation states; Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia’.[1]
Although the Saami Council seeks to attain recognition for the Sami people as one nation, this aspiration remains unfulfilled, meaning that individuals must accept enforced citizenship in one of the states. According to the United Nations Regional Information Centre for Western Europe, ‘their rights and general situation differ considerably depending on the nation state within which they live’. A useful place to find out more is the Oxford LibGuide on Indigenous people: legal resources, which has a subpage devoted to the Indigenous peoples of Europe.
Public domain, GFDL CC-BY-SA-3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Given the nature of his job, Santa should be advised to take note of the international rules on carriage by air (see our LibGuide here) – paying particular attention to the Montreal Convention: ‘it is the duty of the carrier to give notice to the consignee as soon as the cargo arrives’ (Article 13). It might also be an idea to read up on the Reindeer Husbandry Act (Finland) in order to avoid a penalty fine, liable to anyone who ‘transports or attempts to transport reindeer from the territory of one reindeer herding co-operative to another or away from Finland or from another state to Finland without permission’.
But what of Santa’s rights at work? To avoid getting stuck up the chimney (metaphorical or not) without recourse to justice, the Oxford LibGuide on International labour law would be a good place to start.
Established in 1919 by the Treaty of Versailles, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) is ‘responsible for drawing up and overseeing international labour standards’ (and became the first specialized agency of the United Nations in 1946). Bodleian Official Papers has been a depository library for ILO publications and official records since 1938. Assuming that Santa has a Bod card (naturally), he can access ILO publications on Floor 0 of the Bodleian Law Library (prefix O.ILO). Library elves are available to assist…
Mince Pie! by Flickr user Sarah (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Finally, to prepare for his big night, Santa could do much worse than consult Oxford Constitutions of the World, (one of the many legal databases available via this library), which describes itself as ‘the only resource to contain fully-translated English-language versions of all the world’s constitutions (both national and sub-national), accompanied by individual jurisdictional commentaries, and supplementary materials, including foundation documents, historical versions of constitutions, and amendment Acts/Laws’. He’d need a mince pie after that!
Alternatively, he could always stick to the laws of fable instead.
Ho, ho, ho… and a Merry Christmas.
[1]For a serious consideration of this interesting topic, see Patrik Lantt, “Borders, citizenship and change: the case of the Sami people, 1751–2008,” Citizenship Studies, 2010, Vol.14(5), pp.543-556), several versions of which are available online via SOLO.
