Toward an International Institution with Authority over Immigration

This chapter considers the idea that we should design and authorize an international institution to address issues and problems related to immigration. Its contention is that, even if we could somehow create an institution sophisticated and authoritative enough to conclusively determine what each country's portion of the collective solution must be, it still would not follow that individual states would necessarily be morally required to accept any immigrants. In addition, decisions will have to be made about which refugees should be helped in their homeland (with foreign aid and/or military intervention) and which cannot possibly be helped in their native countries and thus must be given political shelter abroad. If a country like Norway chooses to restrict foreigners from joining its political community, then even a wisely designed and perfectly run global institution with authority to assign particular shares to legitimate states would not necessarily leave countries in the position where their only two choices would be to open their borders or act immorally.