Refugees and justice between states

Date01 October 2015
AuthorMatthew J Gibney
Published date01 October 2015
DOI10.1177/1474885115585325
Subject MatterArticles
European Journal of Political Theory
2015, Vol. 14(4) 448–463
!The Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/1474885115585325
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EJPT
Article
Refugees and justice
between states
Matthew J Gibney
University of Oxford, UK
Abstract
In this article, I consider the neglected question of justice between states in the distri-
bution of responsibility for refugees. I argue that a just distribution of refugees across
states is an important normative goal and, accordingly, I attempt to rethink the norma-
tive foundations of the global refugee regime. I show that because dismantling the
restrictive measures currently used by states in the global South to prevent the arrival
of refugees will not suffice to ensure a just distribution of refugees between states, a
more detailed account of how responsibilities should be shared between states is
required. To this end, I make three claims. First, I argue that the definition of ‘refugee’
must be broadened beyond those subjected to persecution to include harms of action
or omission by states that seriously jeopardise personal security or subsistence needs.
Second, I argue that allocating a fair share of refugees to states should be based on
state’s integrative capacities. Finally, I argue that distributive justice between states must
be balanced against the legitimate interests of refugees in their destination country and
the duty of states to ensure they are settled in places where they are likely to flourish.
Keywords
Refugees, international justice, political theory, integration, forced migration
The moral importance of providing asylum to refugees has been one point of
agreement amongst political theorists during a lively debate on the morality
of immigration controls in recent years. Even scholars who defend the right of
states to control their borders to human movement typically accept that this dis-
cretion is limited by obligations to refugees, whom states are morally obliged to
admit to their territory (Miller, 2008; Walzer, 1983; Wellmann and Cole, 2011). In
stark contrast, asylum is a highly contentious practical issue for states and often
treated as inseparable from immigration generally. Over the last two decades, refu-
gees seeking protection in northern states have been confronted with a barrage of
measures designed to prevent their arrival, including visa controls and carrier sanc-
tions, and even ef‌forts to interdict them at sea (Gibney, 2004). Those refugees
Corresponding author:
Matthew J Gibney, University of Oxford, 3 Mansfield Road, Oxford OX2 3LA, UK.
Email: matthew.gibney@qeh.ox.ac.uk
fortunate enough to make it to countries which might protect them are often sub-
jected to detention for long periods or the stultifying life of refugee camps.
There are several reasons for this gap between principle and practice, most obvi-
ously the advantages to political entrepreneurs of scapegoating foreigners and the
nexus between refugee movements and economic migration. But another key, though
underappreciated, factor is the perception in many states that the allocation of
responsibility for the world’s refugees between states is unfair. The non-arrival meas-
ures currently used by Northern states result in huge inequalities in the distribution of
refugees. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR), some two-thirds of the world’s refugees are in the global South, in coun-
tries that rank low on Human Development Index. The UN Secretary-General has
recently decried the fact that ‘the burden of helping the world’s forcibly displaced
people is starkly uneven ...[with] poor countries host[ing] v astly more displaced
people than wealthier ones’ (UN Press Release, 17 June 2011). These inequalities
have not only led some Southern states to justify refusing entry to more refugees,
they contribute to poor quality protection for those refugees that do arrive as over-
burdened states are more likely to host refugees in large and often insecure camps
where their basic liberties are at risk (cf. Loescher and Milner, 2005).
At the same time, Northern states are unlikely to abandon their restrictive meas-
ures because they believe that doing so would lead to them to take on a dispropor-
tionate share of the world’s refugees. The dismantling of non-arrival measures would
certainly give rise to a dif‌ferent pattern of refugee distribution, as novel destination
options for refugees would open up. But as large numbers of refugees would now be
likely to converge on the world’s wealthier countries, equally arbitrary inequalities
would simply replace the old ones. Under these circumstances, Northern states
would have legitimate reasons to contest the new arrangements.
While political theorists have considered the moral claims of refugees to asylum
in individual states in some depth, they have largely ignored the question of what a
just distribution of refugees between states would look like. With few exceptions
(cf. Carens, 2013), their contribution to questions of justice between states has been
conf‌ined to somewhat cursory calls for measures to ‘distribute bona f‌ide refugees
fairly’ (Miller, 2011: 2033) and to create systems that distribute refugees ‘in accord-
ance with each state’s capacity to assist’ (Ferracioli, 2014: 142–143). Little headway
has thus far been made into examining the character of interstate inequity despite
its evident impact on the availability of secure asylum for refugees and its centrality
to contemporary political discussions.
In this article, I intend to rectify this def‌iciency. I argue that a just distribution of
refugees between states is an important normative goal and I attempt to rethink the
normative foundations of the global refugee regime. I suggest that as the disman-
tling of non-arrival measures is not enough to ensure a just distribution of refugees
between states, a convincing account of how responsibilities should be shared
between states is required. To this end, I make three claims here. First, I argue
that the def‌inition of ‘refugee’ must be broadened beyond those subjected to per-
secution to include harms of action or omission by states that seriously jeopardise
personal security or subsistence needs. Second, I argue that allocating a fair share of
Gibney 449

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