Secure and Control: The Illegitimacy of the European Union's Immigration and Border Control Policies during the Migration Crisis

In recent decades, there has been an ideological shift among liberal states to progressively securitize and militarize their external borders, as made evident by policies implemented that promote the exclusion of foreign migrants and refugees. The events that occurred during the European migration crisis are particularly significant to the evolution of the global migration regime as the European Union (EU) deferred to policies directed at security and control, rather than integration and protection, in order to regulate the number of migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea. This thesis examines contemporary liberalism and its foundational ethical principles, and how the ideal of universal human rights is challenged by sovereign authority over border control; such is done within the context of migration by utilizing the European migration crisis as an example of a political society, the EU, exerting authority over its borders. A theoretical evaluation of several politically normative concepts, such as legitimacy, sovereignty and autonomy, will be essential defining the rights and responsibilities of political societies within the international system; and will be informed by the positions of Christopher Heath Wellman and Phillip Cole in Debating the Ethics of Immigration: Is There a Right to Exclude?, as well as that of contemporary liberal scholar John Rawls. After illustrating how the right to exclude is a sovereign right under contemporary liberalism, it is then justified to investigate whether or not the EU may legitimately claim its own right to exclude. To do so, it is necessary to consider three case studies regarding the policies and autonomous decisions made by the EU during the migration crisis. Based upon the theoretical support from Wellman, Cole and Rawls as well as the evidence found in the case studies, I argue that the EU exercised illegitimate authority over its borders as dictated by contemporary liberalism.