Right to Universal Mobility

Abstract

"Migration and the policy of admission of aliens into political communities is increasingly recognised as a key issue of both political agendas and academic debates. As a political issue, migration is at the centre of a controversy where the proponents of more open policies argue against tight border controls on grounds that are often composed of multiple components. Economic theses are frequently mixed with cultural, political, legal, or security arguments. Pragmatic approaches are often entangled with ideological stances, idealistic attitudes, or racist positions. All of this contributes to create a burning situation that not only heats political debates but sometimes also descends to the streets. As a theoretical issue, migration is equally controversial for it intersects a core node of political theory, namely the notion of citizenship. According to liberalism, individuals are entitled to a set of rights including the right to mobility, and yet this right is constrained by an equally recognised right to collective self-determination and national autonomy. This tension is more and more problematic in a world in which individual human rights are on the rise and state sovereignty is in decline in many respects – except for the issue of immigration. In response to these disputes, this straight-to-the-point essay offers a consequentialist cosmopolitan reading of the right to universal mobility that intends to avoid the risk of arbitrary or asymmetric positions. It argues that migrants’ rights to freedom of movement have to be considered as a prima facie cosmopolitan right, a right that ought to be politically recognised and that contributes to individual well-being and subsequently to world welfare. However, the paper also maintains that such right has to be balanced against a prima facie equally valid right of original residents to preserve their societal political project, for this contributes to individual well-being and subsequently to world social welfare, too. Deploying similar reasons, both migrants’ and residents’ claims then ultimately derive their legitimacy from a single principle of global justice, that of maximising social welfare by guaranteeing freedom of choice on different political levels. Hence, a fair political system ought to symmetrically balance these two contrasting claims by appealing to their common principle of justice."(pg 1-2)