Colonialism, Reparations, and the Duty to Include

Most countries in this world have stood in a colonial relation with other countries at some point. Colonialism involves political and economic domination over a dependent territory and was internationally legitimated by a supposed entitlement to conquer and control on the basis of racial or civilizational superiority. In fact, European constitutional states developed within systems of colonial law from the beginning. These states had the power to shape a global migration regime to further their own interests which continue even today. However, the discussion of immigration ethics has mainly focused on global distributive justice. Advocates for open borders often justify international mobility rights by appealing to some distributive standards, such as global equality of opportunity or mere sufficiency. Relatively sparse attention has been paid to the implications of global ractificatory justice for immigration policy. Reference to past injustice can supplement arguments for global distributive justice by providing additional justification for condemning present injustices. Equally important, the continued non-rectification of colonial injustices constitutes an essential part of the present distributive injustice at the global level. In this paper I argue that former colonial states have a reparative duty to extend the option of full membership to the current members of former colonized communities living outside their borders. The duty to include is grounded on the collective duty on the part of the former colonial states to make amends for the historic injustices caused by colonialism and for the continuing non-rectification of such injustices. There are other possible measures of reparations. However, the duty to include is one appropriate response to colonial injustices as it tracks a distinctive wrong of colonialism—that is the creation and imposition of political association that denies members equal and reciprocal terms of cooperation. Not only have the former colonial states failed to rectify the harms of colonialism, they also failed to meet their associative duties, including robust distributive duties to share fairly the benefits deriving from their political association with the colonized peoples, which obtained during the colonial period. Dramatic inequalities among different societies, which are shaped by a shared history of colonial domination and exploitation, make citizenship a significant determinant of a person’s life chances. On the one hand, there is substantial empirical evidence indicating that migration is effective at reducing global poverty for the migrants themselves and the sending countries. On the other, Western affluent states often exploit the unjust disadvantages facing the former colonized peoples to to “cherry pick” potential migrants. In addition, the offer of full membership from the former colonial states tend to take seriously the agency of the current members of formerly colonized communities. They are not forced to stay home and wait for development assistance nor are they forced to migrate abroad.