2 - Impartiality: freedom, equality and open borders

Summary

If it be said that so broadly marked a distinction between what is due to a fellow countryman and what is due merely to a human creature is more worthy of savages than of civilized beings, and ought, with the utmost energy to be contended against, no one holds that opinion more strongly than myself.

John Stuart Mill 1993 [1861]

Citizenship in the modern world is a lot like feudal status in the medieval world. It is assigned at birth; for the most part it is not subject to change by the individual's will and efforts; and it has a major impact upon a person's life chances … Liberals objected to the way feudalism restricted freedom, including the freedom to move from one place to another in search of a better life. But the modern practices of citizenship and state control over borders tie people to the land of their birth almost as effectively.

Joseph H. Carens 1992a

In Chapter 1 we saw both the force and the limitations of the partial viewpoint as an ethical guide for states in responding to refugees. Let us now turn to the dominant theoretical alternative to this perspective, the impartial view. Partialists, it will be remembered, worked with an ideal of states as cultural communities, claiming a right of self-determination on behalf of their citizens which justified exclusive privileges in entrance.