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61In the face of the Brexit vote and the election of Trump, there is serious worry about whether the liberal, democratic, and cosmopolitan values thought to underlie progressive immigration policies are in fact widely shared. In this article, I examine these worries and provide suggestions about how those who do favor just progressive immigration policies might best respond to the problems we currently face.
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285Review of May & Hoskins, International Criminal Law and Philosophy (review)Concurring Opinions Blog 1. 2010.This is a review of an anthology on international criminal law edited by Larry May and Zack Hoskins, published by Cambridge University Press.
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41Are Institutions and Empiricism Enough? (review)Transnational Legal Theory 2 (1). 2011.Legal philosophers have given relatively little attention to international law in comparison to other topics, and philosophers working on international or global justice have not taken international law as a primary focus, either. Allen Buchanan's recent work is arguably the most important exception to these trends. For over a decade he has devoted significant time and philosophical skill to questions central to international law, and has tied these concerns to related issues of global justice m…Read more
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56Self-Determination, Dissent, and the Problem of Population TransfersIn Fernando R. Tesón (ed.), The Theory of Self-Determination, Cambridge University Press. pp. 145-165. 2016.Many of the major self-determination movements of the 20th and early 21st Centuries did not go smoothly, but resulted in forced or semi-forced transfers of groups of people from one country to another. Forced population transfers are not, of course, supported by major theorists of self-determination and secession. However, the problems that make population transfers extremely common in actual cases of self-determination and secession, are not squarely faced in many theories of self-determination…Read more
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54Book ReviewsFox-Decent, Evan. Sovereignty’s Promise: The State as Fiduciary.Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Pp. 283. $99.00 (review)Ethics 123 (1): 150-154. 2012.Review of Evan Fox-Decent, _Sovereignty's Promise: The State as Fiduciary_
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90The Place of Persecution and Non-State Action in Refugee ProtectionIn Alex Sager (ed.), The Ethics and Politics of Immigration: Core Issues and Emerging Trends, Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 45-60. 2016.Crises of forced migration are, unfortunately, nothing new. At the time of the writing of this paper, at least two such crises were in full swing – mass movements from the Middle East and parts of Africa to the E.U., and major movements from Central America to the Southern U.S. border, including movements by large numbers of families and unaccompanied minors. These movements are complex, with multiple causes, and it is always risky to attempt to craft either general policy or philosophical posit…Read more
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333Who are Refugees?Law and Philosophy 32 (5): 645-671. 2013.Hundreds of millions of people around the world are unable to meet their needs on their own, and do not receive adequate protection or support from their home states. These people, if they are to be provided for, need assistance from the international community. If we are to meet our duties to these people, we must have ways of knowing who should be eligible for different forms of relief. One prominent proposal from scholars and activists has been to classify all who are unable to meet their bas…Read more
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74Justice and Temporary Labor MigrationGeorgetown Immigration Law Review 29 95. 2014.Temporary labor migration programs have been among the most controversial topics in discussions of immigration reform. They have been opposed by many, perhaps most, academics writing on immigration, by immigration reform activists, and by organized labor. This opposition has not been without some good reasons, as many historical temporary labor migration programs have led to significant injustice and abuse. However, in this paper I argue that a well-crafted temporary labor migration program is b…Read more
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83Guest Editor’s Introduction to Symposium on Allen Buchanan, The Heart of Human RightsLaw and Philosophy 36 (2): 115-120. 2017.For many years now Allen Buchanan has been one of the most important theorists working on the philosophy of human rights, producing a large number of papers and two books significantly devoted to the topic. In the work under consideration in this symposium, Buchanan breaks new ground by examining what he claims to be the “heart” of international human rights practice – the international legal human rights (“ILHR”) system, subjecting it to moral and philosophical analysis and criticism. Buchana…Read more
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81Review of Sovereignty’s Promise: The State as Fiduciary by Evan Fox-Decent (review)Ethics 123 (1): 150-4. 2012.In Sovereignty’s Promise: The State as Fiduciary, Evan Fox-Decent uses the idea of fiduciary relationships to explain the legitimate exercise of governmental authority. He makes use of the idea of the state as a fiduciary for the people to ground an account of the duty to obey the law, to explain the proper relationships between colonial (or “settler”) societies and aboriginal populations, the role of agency discretion and judicial review in the administrative state, the rule of law, the relati…Read more
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333Climate Change RefugeesCritical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 17 (5): 618-634. 2014.Under the UNHCR definition of a refugee, set out in the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, people fleeing their homes because of natural disasters or other environmental problems do not qualify for refugee status and the protection that come from such status. In a recent paper, "Who Are Refugees?", I defended the essentials of the UNHCR definition on the grounds that refugee status and protection is best reserved for people who can only be helped by granting them refuge in a safe …Read more
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148Well-ordered ScienceJournal of Philosophical Research 32 (9999): 127-139. 2007.The debate over the use of genetically-modified (GM) crops is one where the heat to light ratio is often quite low. Both proponents and opponents of GM crops often resort more to rhetoric than argument. This paper attempts to use Philip Kitcher’s idea of a “well-ordered science” to bring coherence to the debate. While I cannot, of course, here decide when and where, if at all, GM crops should be used I do show how Kitcher’s approach provides a useful framework in which to evaluate the desirabili…Read more
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48Citizenship, in the Immigration ContextUniversity of Maryland Law Review 70 175. 2010.Many international law scholars have begun to argue that the modern world is experiencing a "decline of citizenship," and that citizenship is no longer an important normative category. On the contrary, this paper argues that citizenship remains an important category and, consequently, one that implicates considerations of justice. I articulate and defend a "civic" notion of citizenship, one based explicitly on political values rather than shared demographic features like nationality, race, or cu…Read more
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68The Use and Abuse of Presumptions: Some comments on Dempsey on FinnisVillanova Law Review 57 485. 2012.This paper is a short commentary on Michelle Dempsey's contribution to a symposium on the work of John Finnis which took place at Villanova Law School in the fall of 2011. It focuses on Finnis's claim that there is a presumptive obligation to obey the law and some worries that Dempsey raises against this claim. It is forthcoming, along with several other papers from the symposium, in the Villanova Law Review