Collective Self-Determination and Externalized Border Control

There are two general objections to externalization commonly advanced in the literature. According to the human rights objection, externalization is impermissible because it violates migrants’ rights and leaves them without access to adequate protection. According to the distributive objection, externalization is impermissible because it unfairly distributes the burdens of refugee protection amongst states. This paper develops a third objection to externalization— the self-determination objection—to complement these existing critiques. According to a common argument in defense of border control, legitimate states have a right to exclude on grounds of collective self-determination. In this paper, I argue that the value of self-determination can also serve as a basis for criticizing states’ immigration policies. Specifically, I contend that the externalization policies of states in the Global North—most notably, bi- and multi-lateral migration deals aimed at outsourcing migration control and refugee protection—often undermine the self-determination of peoples in the Global South. My argument consists of two steps. In the first step, I show that externalization indeed often undermines self-determination. I identify five general pathways by which externalization policies undermine self-determination: in various cases, externalization policies prop up illegitimate actors, empower non-representative forms of rule, undermine states in the Global South to freely set their own migration policies, constrain peoples’ associative opportunities, and undermine, via an unfair sharing of burdens, the capacities necessary for self-rule. In a second step, I explain why the fact that externalization undermines self-determination in the Global South provides states in the Global North with a powerful reason not to engage in such policies. To do so, I contrast two different ways of valuing self-determination. On an individualist-libertarian conception, self-determination generates merely a negative right to non-interference. On this conception, only coercively-induced forms of externalization violate the right to self-determination. I contend, however, that even if we endorse this conception, it should incorporate an adequacy proviso, which ensures that all peoples have adequate opportunities to engage in self-rule and this is enough to commit defenders of self-determination to rejecting many actually-existing externalization efforts. More broadly, I contend that the appropriate way to value self-determination is as a substantive right which has positive preconditions, not merely formal freedom. However, once they view self-determination in this way, defenders of self-determination cannot consistently endorse externalization as currently practiced. I conclude by considering whether externalization policies might be reformed to address these criticisms, and, more radically, what it would take for migration governance to be made compatible with the self-determination of states in the Global South.