Global justice and the governance of transnational migration (original) (raw)

2021, Handbook of Migration and Global Justice

Human migration is a common feature of societies, yet in today's world with the securitization of nation-state borders, migration is often conveyed as a problem and migrants as risks to the societies they wish to enter. The securitized response of states to migration is contradictory given the signals that states give about the importance of global mobility to their economies, to growth, to cultural diversity-all benefiting domestic populations. And herein lies a key conundrum for this handbook in the tensions between international and national priorities, duties, laws, and also visions for human coexistence and harmony. Deliberations on migration fit squarely within these tensions. Conceptions of global justice are articulated in a number of domains including the global resource allocation recognized as the root cause of global inequalities (Pogge 2001), as redistributive justice (Fraser 2007; Shachar 2009), articulated in new forms of membership (Bauböck 2009), as well as calls for symbolic recognition (Honneth 2004). From global justice perspectives, many writers have articulated for several decades the problems that result from the embedded nature of methodological nationalism in research, policymaking and social attitudes to human populations (Wimmer and Glick Schiller 2003; Glick Schiller et al. 2011; Faist 2010; Levitt et al. 2003). This methodology proceeds from the assumption that human populations are not only contained but metaphorically sealed within the 'container' of a nation-state, with the nation-state providing identity, resources and protections for members. While international law (particularly human rights), and so many other regulatory systems, operate with the human as the core concern, the nation-state system continues to prioritize members/citizens. Indeed, in the face of the rapid changes associated with globalization, which have decentred the state in some respects, the legal power to determine who is and is not admitted to territory and recognized as a citizen is one remaining arena of state control. Instead, commentators such as Satvinder Juss (2006) argue that migration should be recognized as both a moral and an economic imperative that is in line with what he calls 'global public interest'. One key outcome for migrants from the contradictions inherent in restrictive models of border control and citizenship in otherwise deregulated globalized political and economic systems is exclusion from basic rights such as healthcare, education and social welfare. The serious consequences of differential treatment by nation-states of citizens and others have been brought into sharp relief by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the official designation of the pandemic in March 2020 by the World Health Organization, restrictions on mobility, border closures and myriad other micro-changes to rules, regulations and policies that relate to access to healthcare, social welfare provisions, the right to work and other 'basic rights' are now evident in most states across the globe. This is despite consistent rhetoric from United Nations (UN) bodies urging a unified response to a problem of genuinely global scale. Accompanying these restrictions and measures is the political rhetoric by leaders of many nation-states, invoking a closed-border, citizens-only vision of who requires protection