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"Public political debate about migration has become increasingly important and increasingly heated; substantive engagement with the morality of migration, however, is more uncommon. This book defends a moderate account of the right to exclude, on which the state may exclude some unwanted would-be migrants-but on which there are significant constraints on how and when that right can be exercised. The book grounds this in a particular vision of how exclusion might be justified, on which states are possessed of a presumptive right to avoid unwanted forms of political relationship. This account of the right to exclude is then applied in more specific questions of justice in migration, such as the permissibility of travel bans and carrier sanctions. The book also offers a particular vision about how to go beyond questions of right and liberal justice, toward a declaration of the sort of community we wish to be. The book identifies the moral notion of mercy as a central one for the moral analysis of migration; we ought to show mercy and justice in the construction of migration policy, and each of these moral norms has a role to play in public discourse"--

Michael Blake presents an argument about the moral foundations of foreign policy. He argues that the traditional idea of liberal equality can be interpreted so as to give moral guidance to policy leaders in understanding what they ought to seek internationally.

Abstract
Much modern discussion of the morality of migration begins with the concept of coercion, and takes the coercive nature of border enforcement as especially salient in the moral analysis of migration policy. Much migration control, however, begins not with overt coercion, but with what I term manipulations; these are ways of making migration more difficult that do not resemble canonical cases of coercion. Examples include the alteration of the physical pathways between states, attempts to deceive or mislead prospective migrants about what they will discover upon arrival, and the deliberate use of abstract and complex rules to make legal migration difficult or impossible. I argue that these manipulations are worthy of independent moral examination—and that the tradition of classical liberalism has resources with which to undertake this examination.

AbstractThe claims of those who are compelled to migrate are, in general, taken to be more urgent and pressing than the claims of those who were not forced to do so. This article does not defend the moral relevance of voluntarism to the morality of migration, but instead seeks to demonstrate two complexities that must be included in any plausible account of that moral relevance. The first is that the decision to start the migration journey is distinct from the decision to stop that journey, through resettlement; the latter may involve voluntary choice, without that voluntarism impugning the involuntary nature of the former. The second is that the migration decision of the individual might be voluntary, even while that individual's family or social network might be compelled to insist upon some particular individual member's migration. That is, the fact that any particular person might be free to refuse migration does not contradict the fact that the group in question does not have the effective freedom to avoid the migration of some group members. Once these two complexities are understood, I argue, the moral relevance of voluntarism in the ethics of migration becomes more complex and nuanced than is generally understood.

AbstractIn Territorial Sovereignty: A Philosophical Exploration, Anna Stilz argues that legitimate political authority requires the actual—rather than hypothetical—consent of the governed. I argue, however, that her analysis of that consent is inconsistent, in the weight it ascribes to the felt desire to refrain from doing politics with some particular group of people. In the context of secession and self-determination, the lack of actual consent to shared political institutions is weighty enough to render such institutions presumptively illegitimate. In the context of migration, however, a lack of actual consent to the presence of newcomers is ascribed nearly no weight, and instead is taken as evidence of irrationality or immoral preferences. I argue that this apparent contradiction must be clarified before Stilz's overall account of self-governance can be accepted.

Abstract
Margit Osterloh and Bruno S. Frey have introduced a novel, and potentially powerful, vision of migration rights, on which European states might respond to the current crisis of migration by conditioning admission on the payment of an entry fee. In this comment, I raise a worry about the morality of a world governed by such a principle. While Osterloh and Frey foresee a world in which migration is made more sustainable, with benefits for all stakeholders as a result, I am worried their program would lead to a lessening of support for the moral principles that gave rise to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. This Convention, I argue, ought to be preserved as a public statement of the principle that wealthy states have an obligation to bear some costs in the defense of human rights; Osterloh and Frey, I argue, might be undermining support for those moral principleswe currently have the most need to reinforce. Nevertheless, I argue that under emergency circumstances we might have a need for experimentation and political innovation, even if we are confident that what they produce will necessarily involve some degree of political wrongdoing; we might, in short, have a reason to try out proposals of the sort Osterloh and Frey defend, even if the moral worries I defend here are correct.

Abstract
Darrel Moellendorf, David Owen, and Lea Ypi have offered some subtle and powerful criticisms of the view I defend in Debating Brain Drain. I here focus on two broad category of criticism. The first is that my use of metaphor is faulty. I try to demonstrate that the right to emigrate is similar in moral strength to the right to freely exercise one's religion, and not morally akin to the (non-existent) right to be free from paying taxes. I defend the proposition that the taking of money from people is morally distinct from the taking of time; we have reason to regard the latter sort of taking as more difficult to justify. The second category of criticism focuses on the theoretical assumption of my view, and argues that the liberalism I endorse begs important questions: it might be at such a high level of abstraction that it cannot answer the most important questions of political ethics, or it might assume so much about the nature of liberalism that it is dogmatic and unpersuasive. I argue, in response, that a political theory need not answer all political questions in order to be of use, and that the insistence on liberal rights represents not dogma but valid moral concerns.

Abstract
In my chapters in Debating Brain Drain, I offer some reasons for thinking that states may not seek to prevent the emigration of their own citizens – even when those citizens have rare and desirable skills, and might use those skills to improve the lot of their fellow citizens. These arguments are developed in response to those contrary arguments given by Gillian Brock in her own chapters. I try to establish my conclusions by arguing against the empirical and philosophical bases of arguments in favor of the right to prevent exit. I suggest, on the former front, that suppression of the right to exit might well work against the interests of the poor, rather than in their favor. On the latter front, I argue that any proposals for "compulsory service" are both unfair and illiberal. States are not entitled to perpetual allegiance; rather, they must justify their uses of coercive power with reference to the interests and rights of those over whom that power is exercised. Preventing the emigration of a citizen is, on the best understandings of liberal political philosophy, morally prohibited.