In the scholarly debate, refugeehood is often understood to arise from a special need for basic protection, i.e., for protection of basic needs and rights. However, the main definitions of refugeehood shift to duties when aiming to develop this view. Either, refugees are defined as all those individuals who can receive basic protection from the international community, and thus arguably ought to be protected, or refugees are defined as all those to whom a special form of protection, namely protection by (...) admission is owed. The paper argues that either definition is incompatible with a commonsense desideratum on consistent and plausible criteria for refugeehood, since these definitions imply that refugeehood depends partly on the capacities of protecting states and on the needs of third parties. Instead, refugeehood is defined by the need for basic protection and by flight aiming to remedy this condition. (shrink)

This paper examines potential responses to emerging ‘climate refugee’ justice issues. ‘Climate refugee’ describes migrants forced to flee their homeland due to losses and damages brought about by events linked to global climate change. These include losses and damages due to extreme weather events, severe droughts and floods, sea-level rise, and an array of pollutant contamination issues. A paradigm case if climate refugeedom is seen in the influx of Peruvian immigrants into various North American cities; seeking asylum after losing access (...) to water and agricultural resources after heavy metals were released through rapid glacial melting and contaminated these necessities in recent years. -/- The main discussion begins with a sketch of the scientific picture of the causal genesis of the apparently worsening “climate refugee crisis” and a concise discussion of new climate science research methods, Probabilistic Event Attribution studies (PEAs), that many agree can be used to determine the liability of certain countries for particular extreme events due to climate change (§1). Against that background, and after providing clarifications regarding the distinction between ‘climate refugee’ and ‘environmental refugee’ (§2), I then discuss key ethical and political issues that are unique to climate refugee cases (§3). Subsequently, I critically assess options for helping climate refugees through existing institutions (§4). I endorse pursuing responses to the most pressing climate refugee problems through the provisions for addressing climate change “losses and damages” in the 2016 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, “Paris Agreement”; which outlines “risk sharing” protocol that I contend can be used to help climate refugees who are not currently subject to existing UN policies designed to help other types of refugees (e.g. those fleeing from persecution or war). I conclude by outlining a number of ways that PEAs may aid in effectively implementing those losses and damages provisions. (shrink)

Many contributions to the philosophical debate about conceptual and normative issues raised by the refugee crisis fail to take properly account of the difference between ideal and nonideal theory. This makes several otherwise interesting and apparently plausible contributions to the philosophy of the refugee crisis problematic. They are problematic in the sense that they mix up ideal and nonideal aspirations and assumptions in an incoherent way undermining the proposed views. Two examples of this problem are discussed. The first example is (...) David Miller’s contribution to the conceptual debate about how we should understand refugeehood. The second example is a common argument from the normative debate about how states should discharge their duties to help refugees, namely the claim that states should help in neighboring countries rather than by taking in more asylum seekers. Both are examples of arguments about how we should understand or respond to the refugee crisis, which appear to offer coherent principles for the moral guidance of political actors but which are actually incoherent as principles of practical reasoning for the context they aim to address. (shrink)

The political theory of migration has largely occurred within a paradigm of methodological nationalism and this has led to the neglect of morally salient agents and causes. This article draws on research from the social sciences on the transnationalism, globalization and migration systems theory to show how methodological nationalist assumptions have affected the views of political theorists on membership, culture and distributive justice. In particular, it is contended that methodological nationalism has prevented political theorists of migration from addressing the roles (...) of non-state agents and of transnational economic, social and political structures. These agents and structures contribute to the asymmetrical distribution of goods and opportunities and thus have important implications for debates about migration and distributive justice. (shrink)

Under the UNHCR definition of a refugee, set out in the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, people fleeing their homes because of natural disasters or other environmental problems do not qualify for refugee status and the protection that come from such status. In a recent paper, "Who Are Refugees?", I defended the essentials of the UNHCR definition on the grounds that refugee status and protection is best reserved for people who can only be helped by granting them (...) refuge in a safe state for an indefinite period of time, and argued that this does not include most people fleeing from natural disasters. This claim is most strongly challenged by possibility of displacement from climate change. In this paper I will explore to what degree the logic of the refugee convention, as set out in my earlier paper, can and should be extended to those fleeing the results of climate change, and will argue that the logic of the refugee convention tells in favor of extending refugee protection to a portion of those who must flee their homes because of climate-change related environmental problems. (shrink)

This paper argues against the idea of climate change refugeehood. Drawing on political realism, it reconstructs the idea and function of refugeehood in international politics. Refugees are not the agencyless victims merely in search of rescue by states of the Global North, as the idea of climate refugeehood as a form of humanitarian refugeehood would have it. Nor are they simply a function of reparative justice, or of defending international state legitimacy. To liberal democracies, refugees are those fleeing political oppression. (...) They hold an important political function in inter-state relations in undermining rival political systems and strengthening liberal democratic regimes, both ideally and materially. The idea of climate refugeehood collides with the role refugeehood plays in international politics, the reasons for their admission, and the conceptualization of their plight and function. It ought, hence, to be rejected. (shrink)

Wars and crises worldwide force millions of people to flee and seek refuge, often outside their countries of origin. What moral responsibilities do states have towards refugees? In this Ethical Annotation, Dr Jos Philips and his co-authors zoom in on the responsibilities of EU countries. They consider arguments in favour of and against admitting refugees and argue that EU countries must do at least at much as they can do at little cost, and perhaps even more.

Many authors argue that refugees should be enfranchised independently of citizenship. The enfranchisement of refugees is often seen as crucial for affirming their agency in the politics of asylum. However, most arguments in the literature do not explain why precisely it matters that they exercise their agency in the realm of democratic decision-making, i.e. why it matters that refugees participate in collectively wielding the public power to which they are subjected, rather than passively enjoy protection against the excessive and intrusive (...) exercise of this power. This leaves it unclear what value refugee enfranchisement realises precisely, and what function or role it is meant to play within the overall provision of asylum. My goal is to propose a plausible explanation of the significance of democratic inclusion from the viewpoint of refugees' agency. I argue that refugee enfranchisement affirms refugees' agency by advancing their interest in acting as makers of justice within the political context in which they find themselves. (shrink)

What is political about political refugeehood? Theorists have assumed that refugees are special because their specific predicament as those who are persecuted sets them aside from other “necessitous strangers.” Persecution is a special form of wrongful harm that marks the repudiation of a person's political membership and that cannot—contrary to certain other harms—be remedied where they are. It makes asylum necessary as a specific remedial institution. In this article, I argue that this is correct. Yet, the connection between political membership, (...) its repudiation, and persecution is far from clear. Drawing on normative political thought and research on autocracies, repression, and migration studies, I show that it is political oppression that marks the repudiation of political membership and leads to various forms of repression that can equally not be remedied at home. A truly political account moves away from persecution and endorses political oppression as the normative pillar of refugeehood and asylum. (shrink)

This article offers a Kantian account of dignity violations in the context of contemporary migration to western states. It considers three major issues: “modern slavery,” statutory detention, and lack of rights to engage in economic activity. While most Kantian accounts emphasize the dignity violations of treating people as “mere means,” we point out that this does not capture the central issue: the “hostile environment” that so many migrants face. The first part of the article briefly sets out a Kantian account (...) of dignity violations. The second part highlights two key differences between modern slavery and its historical forebears. It emphasizes the interpersonal rather than institutional character of modern slavery, and distinguishes trafficking from smuggling. The third part argues that migrants who lack formal rights to remain and work face institutional exclusions that violate human dignity. Policies that aim to discourage and restrict immigration demean people’s status as ends in themselves. Moreover, they do so by actively denying opportunities to act as means for others. As such, the article draws a link between Kant’s well-known cosmopolitan right not to be treated with hostility and his less well-known ethical duty, “to be a useful member of the world.” Dignity can be found in acting as a means for others; hostility and exclusion can violate dignity just as much as instrumentalization. (shrink)

What is special about refugees? In this paper, I argue that the two main accounts of who should count as a refugee have major shortcomings. The first, based on protection from persecution, is too n...

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)

It is widely accepted that states have a right to control immigration, but must accept refugees at risk in their home countries. If this is true, perhaps states have a right to deport refugees once their lives are no longer at risk in their home countries. I raise three types of arguments against this claim, and in support of refugees’ right to remain. Citizenship-based arguments hold that refugees have a right to obtain citizenship, and with citizenship comes the right to (...) remain. Plans-based arguments hold that refugees have a right to plan their lives, and they will struggle to plan without the right to remain. Reciprocity-based arguments hold that refugees have a right to reciprocal relationships with citizens, far easier if they know they can remain. I reject the first two arguments, and defend the third. (shrink)

Many affluent states seek to discharge their responsibilities to refugees through extraterritorial policies, which limit the number of refugees that they admit whilst contributing to protection in...

In this chapter, I bring non-ideal theory to bear on the ethics of immigration. In particular, I explore what the obligations of liberal states would be if they were to attempt to implement migration arrangements that conform to liberal-cosmopolitan principles. I argue that some of the obligations states have are feasibility-insensitive, while some are feasibility-sensitive. I show that such obligations can have as their content both the inclusion and exclusion of prospective immigrants, and that they can be grounded in the (...) requirements of liberal justice, mere capacity to assist, as well as past or foreseeable contribution to harm. The chapter therefore explores the possibility of an international migration regime that takes human rights seriously whilst avoiding the twin pitfalls of strict immigration restrictions and the complete liberalization of immigration. (shrink)

Under the 1951 Refugee Convention, there are two necessary conditions for refugeehood: a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion and alienage – that is, being outside of one’s country of nationality or habitual residence. In 1985 Andrew Shacknove famously argued that both of these conditions should be rejected. Shacknove’s paper prompted much debate about the suitability of the persecution condition, but his rejection of the alienage requirement has (...) received significantly less attention. In this paper I argue, against some recent defenders of the Convention, that Shacknove was right to claim that the alienage condition should be rejected. On my view, people who would be granted refugee status if they crossed a border, but who remain in their country of nationality, should also be eligible for refugee status. (shrink)

In the face of the desperate plight of refugees, virtually all moral and political philosophers, regardless of their general position on immigration controls, argue that states have a duty to grant asylum: people must not be turned back to countries where they would face persecution or severe human rights violations. Yet this consensus obscures a number of thorny ethical issues raised by the plight of the displaced. In this piece, I want to draw from recent writing in political and ethical (...) theory to bring some of these issues into view. I start by considering what a refugee is, before turning to the question how the obligations of political communities to the displaced are grounded. I then move to consider what societies owe to refugees and the question of international justice in the allocation of asylum. I conclude with a discussion of the moral responsibilities of refugees themselves. (shrink)

The urgent need to address climate change poses a range of complex moral and practical concerns, not least because rising to the challenge will require cooperation among countries that differ greatly in their wealth, the extent of their contributions to the problem, and their vulnerability to environmental and economic shocks. This thesis by publication in the field of climate ethics aims to characterise a range of national responsibilities associated with acting on climate change (Part I), and to identify proposals for (...) fulfilling those responsibilities through fair and feasible institutional arrangements (Part II). I aim not only to address substantive gaps in scholarly understanding of those responsibilities, but also to strengthen the ability of climate ethics to engage meaningfully with climate policy. Chapter 2 addresses the question of whether wealthy countries owe a “climate debt” to poor countries. It finds that even if climate debt (suitably interpreted) may provide a coherent and morally plausible concept, its political value as a discursive frame that can provide a basis for cooperation is limited. Chapter 3 investigates the role that equity may play in negotiations on a long-term climate change agreement. It argues that developed and developing countries may reach a “principled bargain” if both converge on a way of differentiating their responsibilities that places less emphasis on a rigid dichotomy between the two groups and more emphasis on objective criteria relating to their contribution to the problem and capacity to address it. Chapter 4 explores a question largely overlooked in climate ethics, namely whether wealthy countries owe compensation to those who are adversely affected by the climate policies which they enact. I find that enacting countries have responsibilities to compensate both domestic and foreign citizens who would suffer disproportionate losses from the effects of policies. Chapter 5 assesses whether wealthy countries may legitimately adopt unilateral (or “fragmented”) rather than multilaterally coordinated approaches to raising climate finance for developing countries. It finds that coordinated target-setting, effort sharing and oversight arrangements are essential, but that a mix of unilateral and coordinated approaches to raising funds will be necessary for securing legitimacy. In Chapter 6, through addressing the broader question of what should count as official aid, I consider whether wealthy countries may draw on aid budgets to support developing countries’ efforts to address climate change. I find that the current definition of official aid should be retained but supplemented by specified exclusions from eligibility in order to preserve the aid regime’s integrity. Nevertheless, some climate finance may justifiably be counted as aid provided that concerns relating to the diversion of aid funding are addressed. In addressing these research questions, the thesis seeks not only to make original theoretical contributions to climate ethics but also to strengthen broader scholarly understanding of the ways in which ethics and international public policy may inform one another, particularly by highlighting the role of framing considerations (Chapter 2), feasibility considerations (Chapter 3), and the ways in which principles of fairness and legitimacy map onto institutional functions (Chapters 4, 5 and 6). (shrink)

This paper discusses a recent turn in the ethics of refugee resettlement which involves taking the interests of refugees themselves into account in the distribution of refugees among potential refugee receiving countries. It argues that there is an important category of interest that does not align with the two commonly held views on what is owed to refugees: ‘safety’ or ‘conditions of a good life’. This category, focussing on the refugees’ interests in not being subjected to a variety of non-asylum-grounding (...) injustices, should, by default, take precedence in the assessment of the refugee-based reasons in refugee resettlement. The normative salience of this category – not being subjected to injustice – is illustrated with the help of the case of LGBTIQ+ refugees, and the kinds of injustices they may be subject to in countries that provide them with asylum. (shrink)

The current practices of refugee protection refugees largely leave the burdens of the refugee regime to lie where they fall. Those states which are geographically proximate to refugee-producing regions, already amongst the least advantaged, bear the bulk of these burdens. In this paper, I critically assess two proposals which seek to address this maldistribution: a market in asylum services and a principle of comparative advantage. I argue that from the standpoint of justice, these proposals share two objectionable features. First, they (...) enable relations of domination between states, because they ignore the background relations of inequality upon which they depend for their effectiveness. Second, they institute an injustice of ‘misframing,’ in that they preclude consideration of refugees’ legitimate claims to be hosted (or not to be hosted) in a particular state. The failings of these approaches are illuminating and, I argue, provide us with some theoretical desiderata for a positive account of justice in the distribution of responsibilities to refugees. (shrink)

The movement of people across borders is one of the most pressing issues of our time. Yet it is still unclear how migration should be regulated to be fair to the sending societies, the host societies and the individual migrant. What is at issue? Are we discussing migration from an ethical or from a political philosophical perspective, or both? Are we discussing migration from a global justice perspective or social justice perspective? Do we consider political legitimacy and democratic self-determination as (...) part of our analysis? How should we balance demands of justice in immigration compared to those of emigration? (shrink)

This paper discusses what implications global luck egalitarianism (GLE) has for border control. Some authors suggest that an open‐borders policy follows from GLE. The idea is that various unchosen inequalities inevitably follow from differences in birthplace, such that GLE will always have principled reason to condemn closed borders. Others are skeptical of the assumption that GLE will have liberal implications for border control, because open borders may have other, adverse effects that outweigh the reductions in unjust inequality. Against such skeptics, (...) we argue that GLE will (typically) have quite liberal implications for border control. However, this connection is not a principled one: Whether (and to what extent) GLE favors opening or closing borders will depend upon empirical circumstances. (shrink)

It is widely accepted that states have a right to control immigration, but must accept refugees at risk in their home countries. If this is true, perhaps states have a right to deport refugees once their lives are no longer at risk in their home countries. I raise three types of arguments against this claim, and in support of refugees’ right to remain. Citizenship-based arguments hold that refugees have a right to obtain citizenship, and with citizenship comes the right to (...) remain. Plans-based arguments hold that refugees have a right to plan their lives, and they will struggle to plan without the right to remain. Reciprocity-based arguments hold that refugees have a right to reciprocal relationships with citizens, far easier if they know they can remain. I reject the first two arguments, and defend the third. (shrink)

Since 2015 millions of migrants have paid smugglers to take them across borders. In response, states have increasingly arrested smugglers, hoping to morally condemn smuggling, and to decrease the rate of inward migration. This article argues that, even if a state is justified in morally condemning smuggling, and justified in decreasing inward migration, arresting smugglers is a disproportionate response for reaching these ends.

Using the events in Sweden in the autumn of 2015 as a practical example, this paper examines the question of whether there are circumstances when it is morally permissible for rich, democratic states to close their borders to asylum-seekers. To lay a common ground, the author starts by looking at the right of asylum-seekers, who a refugee is, and what obligations a host country have towards them. Thus, after looking at general human rights, and how they apply to the right (...) to seek asylum, the author turns to the question of who a refugee is, and the difference between refugees according to the 1951 Geneva Convention, and people who are in need of subsidiary protection, before choosing to use UNHCR’s wider definition of a refugee. While acknowledging that refugees have specific rights that other persons in need of protection do not, all asylum-seekers are entitled to not be sent back to a place of danger. Though both groups are entitled to stay on in the country, the temporary status for those in need of subsidiary protection raises some questions about integration and their standing in society and therefore the question of membership rights is discussed before the author returns to the events in Sweden in 2015 and argues that there are circumstances when it is morally acceptable for a country to close its borders to refugees, but that there are limitations when this can be done and for how long. Finally, it is argued that a system that prevents countries from having to – or choosing to – close their borders to refugees is needed. The author discusses whether the grounds for such a system could be found in the work that UNHCR does, and if the DAC agreement can be used as a model for fair distribution. (shrink)

The number of refugees in the world amounts to more than one percent of the entire world population. This essay is an attempt to think about this question and assess the literature that addresses it, especially from the standpoint of ethics and political theory, and a grounding in real-world problems. The paper is intended as an introductory discussion for those interested in the debates about who should qualify for refugee status, especially in light of the predicament of Central Americans fleeing (...) from the disorder. It pays special attention to the claim that the US has reparative obligations to Central American countries owing to US interventionist policies. (shrink)