Global Justice and Reflexive Immigration

Asha Sundaramurthy

doi:10.4172/2332-0761.1000179

Abstract

The nature of immigration policies across countries have gained immense importance and come under scrutiny; on whether notions of global justice are better implemented under open or close borders. This proposed paper will look into the theory of global justice and redistribution starting with Rawls and his critics and apply a cosmopolitan framework on the ethics of immigration and borders. Relevant discourses on immigration and borders have largely focused on the accepting country and migrants, and their relationship but have failed to adequately consider the origin country. However, this analysis will not only include the origin country but also look at principles of global justice in a comprehensive structure comprising all three actors: the migrants, accepting and origin countries. Engaging with the issues on how to make immigration policies fair will be done through an analysis of global difference principle and global equality of opportunity. Based on this understanding, the paper attempts to seek to assert a weak cosmopolitan premise with opportunity sets in as the context to create immigration policies.

Highlights

The term migration refers to the movement of people across different lands, a process that has existed since ancient times
The following paragraphs will comprise of the insufficient nature of the Rawlsian notion of justice in the Law of Peoples in contrast to his Theory of Justice and recapitulate some of the discussions and criticisms of applying this concept to immigration. This will be followed by a discussion of equality of opportunity and global difference principle in the framework of cosmopolitanism to apply it to immigration
The theoretical framework explored in this paper could well inform immigration policy which would benefit all the parties concerned and give it an ethical framework

Summary

Introduction

The term migration refers to the movement of people across different lands, a process that has existed since ancient times. An analysis on equal opportunity and the difference principle applied to the global level reveals the moral reasoning behind many of these viewpoints Based on this understanding, the paper asserts a moderate stand of border control grounded on a weak cosmopolitan premise principle that satisfies migrants, sending and receiving countries in the framework of the global justice. Open and close border defenders shape their arguments selectively by only partially incorporating the effects of immigration This can be seen in cosmopolitan arguments which conceive of justice only for the migrant and sometimes discard the impact on the host and origin countries [4]. Other scholars for unrestricted borders argue that the sending country reaps benefits from immigration as it reduces poverty [16] These arguments fail to adequately grasp the impact in a more complete manner, as it does not address the effects of brain drain in stunting the development of the country. To arrive at a policy that is congruent to ideas of justice, the theoretical aspect of justice and ethics in immigration should be explored in detail so that it can translate to policy

Global Justice and Ethics of Immigration

Global Difference Principle and Immigration

Global Equality of Opportunity and Immigration

Conclusion