Global Justice and Mobility: Is There Room For An Ethic of Emigration ?

There has been a normative tension between emigration and immigration since 1948. Indeed, article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has a universal right to leave his country, but recognizes only the right to enter only for those who are already citizens of their country. Thus, citizens have a right to exit and a right to enter. Others hold only a right to exit. What is more, this normative tension has been built up in international law as well. (Cole, 2006)

With the rise of mobility regimes in the beginning of the nineties, political thinkers have focused on immigration in order to identify the moral obligations of States that could transform the right to enter into a real universal right. But a number of authors have recently called into question the relative neglect of the right to leave (Bauböck 2009, Clemens 2011, Cole 2006, 2011). The purpose of this workshop is to explore the meaning of this turn for political theory. Contributions from empirical and normative sciences are welcome.  Here are some of the questions to be examined : Are the effect of individuals’ mobility on those who decide to stay the same in sending countries and in arrivals countries? Do they vary with what motivates individuals to move or to stay according to gender,  to their level of education or to their sector of professional activities? What are the standards that should be adopted to assess them? What are the moral obligations of States toward those who decide to stay and those who decide to leave and how best to protect the rights of these individuals  What kind of international institutions does the management of migration flux require?