Immigration and social justice: towards a progressive European immigration policy?

Stepping back from current debates over immigration in the new 'Fortress Europe', this paper examines moral and philosophical auguments for an alternative and more 'progressive' immigration policy. Despite recent interest within geography in principles of social justice, the extent to which such principles reach beyond particular societies or nations has rarely been considered explicitly. The notion of social justice may be extended to the question of immigration, without taking the position that migration should itself be seen as a 'human right'. Even within relatively conservative contractarian and communitarian conceptions of social justice, a number of suggestions can be made for 'progressive' policy options, in particular by focusing on the communal rights and duties of societies rather than the human rights of individual migrants.