In this chapter I focus on two problems facing immigration systems around the world, and Australia in particular. The topics addressed are chosen because each one involves important fundamental rights and because significant improvement in these areas is possible even if each state acts alone, without significant coordination with others. First, I examine refugee programmes, focussing specifically on the ‘two- tier’ refugee programmes pioneered by Australia with the introduction of Temporary Protection Visas by the Howard Government in 1999. Next, I (...) look at recent declines in refugee resettlement schemes from already stingy levels and, in relation to Australia in particular, I show how the tying of resettlement numbers to the number of affirmative asylum claims granted is both wrong- headed and counterproductive. The second area of immigration policy explored is family migration, another area where immigration systems around the world have been moving in the wrong direction, often via less than transparent administrative processes. Australia is no exception. While Australia’s family migration system is reasonably good on its face, in practice there are several factors which make the programme significantly less than satisfactory from the perspective of protecting the basic rights of migrants and, arguably more importantly, citizens. These problems can and should be fixed in straightforward ways, and since doing so would be more just, would have few— if any— significant negative consequences, and in fact would have a number of clear benefits, those changes should be made. (shrink)

A Significant percentage of the people outside their country of citizenship or residence who are unable to meet their basic needs on their own, and need international protection, do not fall under the definition set out in the UN Refugee Convention. This has led many - both academic commentators and activists - to call for a new, expanded refugee definition, preferably backed up by a new, binding, international convention. In earlier work I have resisted this call, arguing that there is (...) good reason to pick out a sub-stet of those in need of international aid - a set that largely, if not completely, corresponds to those picked out by the Refugee Convention - for special benefit and protection. However, even if Convention refugees are in some ways special, we are left with the question of what, if anything, is owed to those in need of aid who are not Convention refugees. In this chapter, I set out philosophical foundations for so-called complementary protection, and show how this may and should apply to people in need of international aid who are not Convention refugees. (shrink)

Employers seeking to control employee behavior outside of working hours is nothing new. However, recent developments have extended efforts to control employee behavior into new areas, with new significance. Employers seek to control legal behavior by employees outside of working hours, to have significant influence over employee’s health-related behavior, and to monitor and control employee’s social media, even when this behavior has nothing to do with the workplace. In this article, I draw on the work of political theorists Jon Elster, (...) Gerald Gaus and Michael Walzer, and privacy scholars Daniel Solove and Anita Allen, to show what is wrong with this extension of employer control of employee’s outside of work behavior. I argue that there are ethical limits on the controls that employers may put on their employees’ out of work behavior, and that many of these limits should be enshrined into legal protections which would prevent employers from conditioning employment on the regulations criticized. -/- (Please note that the version of this paper on SSRN is a pre-publication version. Please cite and refer to the published version when possible.). (shrink)

In this short paper I hope to use some ideas drawn from the theory and practice of civil disobedience to address one of the most difficult questions in immigration theory, one rarely addressed by philosophers or other theorists working on the topic: How should we respond to people who violate immigration law? I will start with what I take to be the easiest case for my approach—that of so-called “Dreamers”—unauthorized immigrants in the US who were brought to this country while (...) still children (often as infants) and who have spent the majority of their lives in the US. Members of this group have engaged in wide-scale protests, making the civil disobedience paradigm all the more plausible. I will then move on to the case of unauthorized immigrants who have engaged in protests, but who do not fall into the “Dreamer” category. Finally, I will consider whether thinking about immigration law violations from the perspective of civil disobedience—and the proper response to that—can help us think about immigration enforcement more generally. (shrink)

How to respond to unauthorized migration and migrants is one of the most difficult questions in relation to migration theory and policy. In this commentary on Gillian Brock’s discussion of “irregular” migration, I do not attempt to give a fully satisfactory account of how to respond to unauthorized migration, but rather, using Brock’s discussion, try to highlight what I see as the most important difficulties in crafting an acceptable account, and raise some problems with the approach that Brock takes. In (...) thinking about unauthorized migration, both while trying to craft positive policies and while critiquing existing practices, we need to ask if we are most interested in a general account of how to respond to unauthorized migration, one that would apply to the large majority of cases and provide us a default approach, or if we are better served by taking a piecemeal approach, looking at why certain people or certain groups should be exempt from removal, even if they would otherwise be liable to it. In this paper, I will focus primarily on this distinction, and argue that it is at least important to provide an account of the "generic unauthorized". (shrink)

This is a short introduction to a book symposium on Paul Gowder's recent book, _The Rule of Law in thee Real World_ (Cambridge University Press, 2016). The book symposium will appear in the St. Luis University Law Journal, 62 St. Louis U. L.J., -- (2018), with commentaries on Gowder's book by colleen Murphy, Robin West, Chad Flanders, and Matthew Lister, along with replies by Paul Gowder.

The following is an unedited/copy edited version of a review to appear in Ethics. if citation is desired, please cite to the published version when it appears (April 2021). -/- For several years Michael Blake has been among the most important contributors to the philosophical literature on immigration. This book is therefore greatly anticipated, and develops a number of fruitful arguments. Although I will argue that the account is unsuccessful or incomplete at key points, it’s clearly an important work of (...) relevance to those working on immigration, as well as to political philosophers more generally. In particular, Blake provides powerful arguments against the claim that “open borders” are required by liberal principles of justice, develops his own “jurisdictional” account justifying immigration restrictions and the acceptable limits to these restrictions, and, in the most interesting and novel part of the book, discusses the role of virtues and values other than justice in relation to immigration policy, focusing specifically on the virtue of mercy. This last section of the book has potential for starting a rewarding line of research for political philosophers working on many topics, not just immigration. (shrink)

This is a review of an anthology on international criminal law edited by Larry May and Zack Hoskins, published by Cambridge University Press.