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4 - Immigration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 November 2015

Loren E. Lomasky
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
Fernando R. Tesón
Affiliation:
Florida State University
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Summary

However else one may choose to evaluate the argument of Chapter 3, it should not be taken as an apologia for rich countries' impositions on the poor. Just the reverse: although it is always and everywhere impermissible to wrong others, all the more so is this the case with inflictions on those already down and out. Duties of special care are owed to those who are most vulnerable, and this surely includes the billion or so people who live under the $1.25 per day poverty line. Saying, “We are not the ones who put them there!” is not an adequate defense. Response to a further question is called for: “Do your policies and actions help to keep them there?” Unfortunately, the answer far too often is yes.

Beyond Rawlsian Global Justice

Traditionally, the search for a theory of justice across borders began with consideration of jus ad bellum, conditions that must be met in order to wage a just war. This is also pretty much where it ended, with a few codicils thrown in concerning reception of diplomatic emissaries, extension of princely courtesies, and fidelity to pacts duly sworn between sovereign entities. Although in Law of Peoples, Rawls' concerns extend beyond those of predecessors such as Grotius and Pufendorf, the genre is the same: duties owed by one state (or in Rawls' preferred locution, people) to another. That is, the parties involved are political collectivities, not the individual citizens of which they are comprised. However one appraises, then, the success of Rawls' account as far as it goes, it is facially incomplete. Along with an appraisal of state-to-state relations, the fuller account of global justice will include actions across borders that involve (1) states acting on private individuals, (2) private individuals acting on private individuals, and (3) private individuals acting on states. Further complicating the taxonomy is existence of entities such as international organizations (the United Nations, the World Trade Organization [WTO], etc.) and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), which are not sovereign states but neither are they purely voluntary assemblages of private parties. Some NGOs operate mostly to serve the philanthropic and other ends of private parties: Oxfam is an example. Some straddle the public/private divide. It is not our intention to offer a comprehensive global-justice account that fills in each of these boxes.

Type
Chapter
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Justice at a Distance
Extending Freedom Globally
, pp. 90 - 120
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2015

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