Necessity Knows No Borders

• In Event: The Poor's Privilege

Abstract

Cosmopolitans interested in global justice normally take basic human rights as a starting point wherefrom to ground the duties of the well-off towards the needy at the global level. A point that has been mostly overlooked in the discussion is that taking basic human rights seriously—and the basic right to subsistence in particular—implies acknowledging that people in need have a “right of necessity” to take, use and/or occupy the property of others in order to get out of their plight. In other words, it implies acknowledging that people in need, given certain conditions, are morally permitted to do things that go against standard property laws in order to fulfil their basic rights.
In this paper, I explore the implications of this for the phenomenon of illegal migration for subsistence reasons, and suggest that those seeking to enter should be morally permitted to do it, and those already in should not be deported. Just as basic rights ought to internally limit any minimally reasonable system of property rights, so ought they to internally limit any minimally reasonable system of territorial rights. I develop this idea, address some objections and conclude.

Author

• Alejandra Mancilla, University of Oslo