Making sense of EU migration cooperation with third countries as a distributive (in)justice question. Does money do the job?
(2024) Distributive Justice in International Law- Abstract
- The EU and its Member States have been increasingly engaging into cooperation with third countries with the view to containing movements and preventing refugees from entering European soil. These cooperative arrangements have been critiqued for allowing EU countries to evade their responsibilities vis-a-vis refugees subjecting them to substandard treatment in transit countries.
From a distributive justice perspective, the question is whether unhindered freedom of movement across borders is necessary for people to access their right to be protected from persecution, or whether states and their residents could discharge their obligations in other ways, than admitting refugees in their territory. For example, states could seek to meet... (More) - The EU and its Member States have been increasingly engaging into cooperation with third countries with the view to containing movements and preventing refugees from entering European soil. These cooperative arrangements have been critiqued for allowing EU countries to evade their responsibilities vis-a-vis refugees subjecting them to substandard treatment in transit countries.
From a distributive justice perspective, the question is whether unhindered freedom of movement across borders is necessary for people to access their right to be protected from persecution, or whether states and their residents could discharge their obligations in other ways, than admitting refugees in their territory. For example, states could seek to meet their obligations via contributions to foreign aid schemes; trade and investment in those countries; capacity building and professional training programmes. Alternatively, states might opt for opening their borders to certain refugee populations for immediate relief, including temporary access to education, healthcare and work (see the Ukrainian case), but offer no long-term residence opportunities. Or indeed, states might wish to discharge their obligations to asylum seekers and refugees via agreements with third countries who accept to admit them. If Albania is willing to admit refugees from Morocco and grant them access to fair and effective asylum determination procedures on behalf of Italy (or any other EU country), then a right for them to enter Italy won’t be plausible. In this sense, it is difficult to see how freedom of movement across borders followed by a right to be admitted to a particular country could be a necessary condition for fulfilling the requirements of distributive justice (however that is understood) if these requirements could be otherwise realized.
In this paper I argue that this is not the end of the matter and that fulfilling the demands of distributive justice requires to show that other measures are sufficient on their own, in two accounts: both as regards the refugee herself and the host country in question. For as long as distributive injustice persists in the world and Western countries are complicit to such injustices, they and their residents are obligated to take action, rather than just to discharge a more limited set of obligations. Drawing on a historical account of European states’ interference with human mobility, it is not unthinkable to argue that ad hoc responses to refugee movements including limited resettlement or mere financial assistance does not offset deterrence and responsibility shifting to third (transit) countries and as such they are not sufficient to compensate for the uneven distributive effects of their policies.
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Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/4a0ae2b3-a2c1-46ab-b2f1-322551277e4d
- author
- Karageorgiou, Eleni LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2024
- type
- Contribution to conference
- publication status
- unpublished
- subject
- keywords
- Public international law, Folkrätt
- conference name
- Distributive Justice in International Law
- conference location
- Rome, Italy
- conference dates
- 2024-10-03 - 2024-10-04
- project
- The Borders Within: the Multifaceted Legal Landscape of Migrant Integration in Europe
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 4a0ae2b3-a2c1-46ab-b2f1-322551277e4d
- date added to LUP
- 2025-03-07 16:26:34
- date last changed
- 2025-06-09 11:59:30
@misc{4a0ae2b3-a2c1-46ab-b2f1-322551277e4d,
abstract = {{The EU and its Member States have been increasingly engaging into cooperation with third countries with the view to containing movements and preventing refugees from entering European soil. These cooperative arrangements have been critiqued for allowing EU countries to evade their responsibilities vis-a-vis refugees subjecting them to substandard treatment in transit countries. <br/>From a distributive justice perspective, the question is whether unhindered freedom of movement across borders is necessary for people to access their right to be protected from persecution, or whether states and their residents could discharge their obligations in other ways, than admitting refugees in their territory. For example, states could seek to meet their obligations via contributions to foreign aid schemes; trade and investment in those countries; capacity building and professional training programmes. Alternatively, states might opt for opening their borders to certain refugee populations for immediate relief, including temporary access to education, healthcare and work (see the Ukrainian case), but offer no long-term residence opportunities. Or indeed, states might wish to discharge their obligations to asylum seekers and refugees via agreements with third countries who accept to admit them. If Albania is willing to admit refugees from Morocco and grant them access to fair and effective asylum determination procedures on behalf of Italy (or any other EU country), then a right for them to enter Italy won’t be plausible. In this sense, it is difficult to see how freedom of movement across borders followed by a right to be admitted to a particular country could be a necessary condition for fulfilling the requirements of distributive justice (however that is understood) if these requirements could be otherwise realized. <br/>In this paper I argue that this is not the end of the matter and that fulfilling the demands of distributive justice requires to show that other measures are sufficient on their own, in two accounts: both as regards the refugee herself and the host country in question. For as long as distributive injustice persists in the world and Western countries are complicit to such injustices, they and their residents are obligated to take action, rather than just to discharge a more limited set of obligations. Drawing on a historical account of European states’ interference with human mobility, it is not unthinkable to argue that ad hoc responses to refugee movements including limited resettlement or mere financial assistance does not offset deterrence and responsibility shifting to third (transit) countries and as such they are not sufficient to compensate for the uneven distributive effects of their policies. <br/>}},
author = {{Karageorgiou, Eleni}},
keywords = {{Public international law; Folkrätt}},
language = {{eng}},
title = {{Making sense of EU migration cooperation with third countries as a distributive (in)justice question. Does money do the job?}},
year = {{2024}},
}