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Cross-border trouble / Julie Grant -- The state of the African Union / Kerry Dimmer -- Open hypocrisy in the Commonwealth / David Olusoga -- Climate without borders / Jason Hickel -- The new refugees / Nicole Alzapiedi -- Transnational refugee nation / Peter Beaumont -- The American example / Jacob G. Hornberger -- An economic argument against open borders / Paul Ormerod -- The political effects of open borders / Anna Maria Mayda and Giovanni Peri -- Open borders are moral borders / Guy Aitchison -- The Swiss example / Vasco Pedrina -- How open borders help workers around the world / Kevin Shih -- Why open borders are essential to the global economy / Mary Jo Dudley.

Throughout 2016 and emerging into 2017, we saw a global upheaval of liberal thinking. Through Brexit, Trump's America and Modi's India, freedom of movement across borders were increasingly under threat. Politics, and in particular the populist movements can be seen to be increasingly benefiting from social media as a way to get 'directly to the people'. It is in this context that we worked with contributors that were working in some of the invisible borders - borders between endangered languages, borders between life and death - alongside people building bridges; bridges of openness, bridges in creativity; bridges between visibility in AI and our voice. This book includes contributions from Mozilla, the AHRC and London

International audience ; Critics have dismissed the notion of open borders as utopian. In this article I argue that open borders are not a utopia. My concern, however, is not whether open borders are practical or politically feasible. Rather, my point is that the notion of open borders is merely a critique and a negation of the contemporary condition of closed borders. It does not articulate concrete alternatives, which would be a characteristic of utopia. Furthermore, drawing on the 'Frankfurt School' of critical theory, I suggest that concrete utopias that incorporate the notion of open borders must be rejected. Instead, the path towards an open-border world is a dialectical one in which the imagination of the future cannot be fixed.

"Because of restrictive borders, human beings suffer and die. Closed borders force migrants seeking safety and dignity to journey across seas, trudge through deserts, and clamber over barbed wire. In the last five years alone, over 60,000 people have died or gone missing while attempting to cross a border. As we deny, cast out, and crack down, we have stripped borders of their potential--as lines of contact, catalyst, and blend--turning our thresholds into barricades. Brilliant and provocative, The Case for Open Borders deflates the mythology of national security through border lockdowns by revisiting their historical origins; it counters the conspiracies of immigration's economic consequences; it urgently considers the challenges of climate change beyond the boundaries of narrow national identities. This book grounds its argument in the experiences and thinking of those on the frontlines of the crisis, spanning the world to do so. In each chapter, John Washington profiles a character impacted by borders. He adds to those portraits provocative analyses of the economics and ethics of bordering, concluding that if we are to seek justice or sustainability we must fight for open borders. In recent years, important thinkers have begun to urge a different approach to migration, but no book has made the argument as accessible or as compelling. Washington's case shines with the voices of people on the move, a portrait of what a world with open borders will give to our common future."--

Where do we draw the line on the adage that "good fences make good neighbours?" The iconic Robert Frost verse is much quoted, but do longer, higher, barbed-wire, electrified, security-patrolled, and access-controlled fences make for still better neighbours? This question embodies the essence of current continuing tensions along the Canadian-US borders. The traditional "longest undefended cliche" is quickly becoming a 20th-century artefact with levels of security and proposals for much, much more than would have been conceivable a decade ago, before 11 September 2001. Admittedly, this circumstance would barely be recognized as a constraint, let alone a problem, throughout much of the world in historical or even current terms, where crossing a national border is a serious personal-political decision. (Try getting a visa to Russia or China if you want a lesson in bureaucratic frustration.) Nevertheless, due to the unique US-Canadian relationship, its recent evolution needs examination. Adapted from the source document.