Navigating State Borders: Legal and Moral Dimensions
Authors: Secen Sefa 
Published: November 2024

Although developments in transportation and communications technology have made movement across international borders easier than ever in the 21st century, states largely continue to control and regulate human mobility based on a strict logic of territorial sovereignty. The underlying principle of sovereignty is often construed as the absolute prerogative to determine associations with individuals and entities in the realm of international relations. In this regard, human mobility across borders is the exception rather than the rule and only occurs when states choose not to enforce border controls for economic, political, legal, or moral considerations, or when they lack the military capacity to enforce them. Exceptions to sovereignty-based restrictions on human mobility include the removal of entry barriers, porous borders facilitating unauthorized entry, authorized immigration or labor migration, the right to asylum, and international travel or short-term mobility. On the one hand, bilateral and multilateral initiatives to ease border restrictions reflect a shift in how some states perceive and enact their sovereignty in the context of border policies. On the other hand, porous borders facilitating unauthorized entry indicate that not all states are equally sovereign or well-equipped to protect their borders. There are also a wide range of factors such as geographical features, political complexities, and historical ties between bordering regions that contribute to the porosity of borders. Furthermore, immigration as the largest form and ground of human mobility is driven by a set of push and pull factors. People immigrate in search of work or economic opportunity, to join family, to study, or for various other reasons. States in the global north choose to admit immigrants due to labor-market concerns aggravated by demographic anxieties: aging population and low birth rates. While the economic benefits of immigration may be asymmetrical or uneven for sending and receiving countries, they are significant enough to drive and sustain the outflow of immigrants from the global south to the global north. Immigration is predominantly a matter of public policy rather than a subject of global governance for states. In other words, under existing international laws, norms, and principles, states have the right to choose to close their borders to immigrants as well as short-term visitors. However, they cannot deny individuals the right to asylum. While the distinction between immigrants and refugees may not always be as clear as it appears, asylum is the only condition defined under international law that affords individuals with protection and rights beyond national borders. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights highlights that “everyone has the right to seek asylum from persecution in other countries,” and the vast majority of the world’s nations, 148 UN member states, are also parties to the Refugee Convention of 1951 and its 1967 Protocol. Additionally, the non-refoulment principle, of not returning an individual to a country where they may be subject to persecution, has transformed into a customary international law. As a result, it is legally and morally unjustifiable for states to exclude refugees.