Global Justice and Open Borders: An Inclusive Statist Account

Standard arguments for open borders draw on cosmopolitan premises. By contrast, statism as a theory of global justice seems to be at odds with open borders. If states are only responsible for protecting the autonomy of citizens and do not owe foreigners equal consideration of their claims, it appears to follow that they may legitimately exclude unwanted immigrants as long as their human rights are not at stake. In this article, I argue that one can be a statist and still defend open borders. Even though moral equality gives rise to demands of distributive justice only in the context of shared subjection to the authority of the state, such that foreigners are not entitled to equal treatment, moral equality demands that the state shows equal respect for their autonomy. Immigration restrictions that are not aimed at protecting the autonomy of citizens are incompatible with equal respect for foreigners’ autonomy, since they subject the latter to unilateral coercion without it being necessary for the former to lead autonomous lives.