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What (If Anything) Is Wrong with Trading Refugee Quotas?

What (If Anything) Is Wrong with Trading Refugee Quotas? The tradable refugee quota scheme constitutes one proposal for institutionalising the general right to asylum. The scheme allows states to purchase and sell quotas of refugees that are initially assigned to them through a collectivised status-determination process. In this paper I focus on examining the ethical dimensions of one particular component of the tradable refugee quota scheme: the market. I consider three objections against the quota trading practices: ‘the preference objection’, ‘the dignity objection’, and ‘the exploitation objection’. The first objection suggests that the tradable quota scheme is problematic due to the fact that it fails to consider refugees’ desires regarding the final country in which asylum is provided. The second objection claims that the scheme demeans refugees and violates their dignity. The final objection claims that the scheme leads to the exploitation of weak countries. I argue that the objections fail to show that the tradable quota scheme is inherently problematic. I conclude that either the examined objections can be rejected or it is possible to address the concerns through specific institutional arrangements. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Res Publica Springer Journals

What (If Anything) Is Wrong with Trading Refugee Quotas?

Kuosmanen, Jaakko
Res Publica , Volume 19 (2) – May 1, 2013
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17 pages

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References (24)

Publisher
Springer Journals
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 by Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Subject
Philosophy; Philosophy of Law; Philosophy of Religion; Political Philosophy; Ethics; Philosophy
ISSN
1356-4765
eISSN
1572-8692
DOI
10.1007/s11158-012-9198-y
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

The tradable refugee quota scheme constitutes one proposal for institutionalising the general right to asylum. The scheme allows states to purchase and sell quotas of refugees that are initially assigned to them through a collectivised status-determination process. In this paper I focus on examining the ethical dimensions of one particular component of the tradable refugee quota scheme: the market. I consider three objections against the quota trading practices: ‘the preference objection’, ‘the dignity objection’, and ‘the exploitation objection’. The first objection suggests that the tradable quota scheme is problematic due to the fact that it fails to consider refugees’ desires regarding the final country in which asylum is provided. The second objection claims that the scheme demeans refugees and violates their dignity. The final objection claims that the scheme leads to the exploitation of weak countries. I argue that the objections fail to show that the tradable quota scheme is inherently problematic. I conclude that either the examined objections can be rejected or it is possible to address the concerns through specific institutional arrangements.

Journal

Res Publica – Springer Journals

Published: May 1, 2013

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