At the dawn of a new century the trans-national movement of peoples has emerged as a major issue of our times. Whether they are initiated by economic migrants from the poorer regions of the world trying to reach the shores of resource-rich democracies in the north and the west; whether they are undertaken by asylum and refuge seekers escaping persecution, civil wars, and natural disasters; or whether they are initiated by ‘displaced persons,’ who are fleeing civil war, ethnic conflict and state-inflicted violence in their own societies, such movements have presented the world-state system with unprecedented challenges. Given the salience of these developments, it is surprising that the cross-border movements of peoples, and the philosophical as well as policy problems suggested by them, have been the object of such scant attention in contemporary political philosophy. The Rights of Others intended to fill this lacuna in contemporary political thought by focusing on political membership.

I am grateful that my arguments have aroused a good deal of attention. The Rights of Others has won the Ralph Bunche Award of the American Political Science Association in 2005, and was given the Best Book in Social Philosophy award in 2004 by the North American Society for Social Philosophy. Also, the book has been translated into Spanish, Italian, Turkish, Dutch, and Chinese, with a German translation forthcoming.