On the Right of Exclusion: Law, Ethics and Immigration Policy addresses Western immigration policies regarding so-called `normal migrants i.e. migrants without a legal right to admission. The book argues that if authorities cannot substantially justify the exclusion of a normal migrant, the latter should be admitted. By contrast, today authorities still believe they may deny normal migrants admission to the territory without giving them proper justification. Bas Schotel challenges this state of affairs and calls for a reversal of the default position in admission laws. The justification should, he argues, involve a serious accounting for the interests and reasons applicable to the normal migrant seeking admission. Furthermore, the first burden of justification should lie with the authorities. To build this case, the book makes three types of argument: legal, ethical and institutional. The legal argument shows that there are no grounds in either sovereignty or the structure of law for current admission practices. Whilst this legal argument accounts for a duty to justify exclusion, the ethical argument shows why the authorities should carry the first burden of justification. Finally, the institutional argument explores how this new position might be implemented. An original, yet practical, undermining of the logic that underlies current immigration laws, On the Right of Exclusion: Law, Ethics and Immigration Policy will be essential reading for those with intellectual, political and policy interests in this area.

On the Right of Exclusion: Law, Ethics and Immigration Policy addresses Western immigration policies regarding so-called `normal migrants i.e. migrants without a legal right to admission. The book argues that if authorities cannot substantially justify the exclusion of a normal migrant, the latter should be admitted. By contrast, today authorities still believe they may deny normal migrants admission to the territory without giving them proper justification. Bas Schotel challenges this state of affairs and calls for a reversal of the default position in admission laws. The justification should, he argues, involve a serious accounting for the interests and reasons applicable to the normal migrant seeking admission. Furthermore, the first burden of justification should lie with the authorities. To build this case, the book makes three types of argument: legal, ethical and institutional. The legal argument shows that there are no grounds in either sovereignty or the structure of law for current admission practices. Whilst this legal argument accounts for a duty to justify exclusion, the ethical argument shows why the authorities should carry the first burden of justification. Finally, the institutional argument explores how this new position might be implemented. An original, yet practical, undermining of the logic that underlies current immigration laws, On the Right of Exclusion: Law, Ethics and Immigration Policy will be essential reading for those with intellectual, political and policy interests in this area.

This book may change the way legal scholars, political theorists and policy makers look at our immigration policies. From now on we have strong reasons for adopting a new default position for evaluating and designing our admission laws and policies: the exclusion of aliens seeking admission must be substantially justified (vis-A -vis the excluded aliens) by the state. The burden of proof should lie with the state. For want of such substantial justification the alien is to be admitted.

As one the first in its kind, the book builds a comprehensive case for changing our admission policies through an analysis of the structure of the law and legal order. This opens new routes previously left unexplored by experts in immigration law and the ethics of migration. More importantly, as the admission laws become untenable from the legal perspective, policy makers can no longer hide behind the (formal) law.

The book also revitalizes the scholarship in ethics of migration. The author shows how the seemingly diverging positions in favour of (more) open or closed borders all point in the same direction: admission must be justified and the first to do so is the state.

Far from being utopian, the book renders the theoretical arguments tangible and realistic through an elaborate discussion of a concrete policy proposal by an expert committee on immigration law.

In short, after reading this work, the reader is left with the conviction that the current default position of immigration laws and policies is not self-evident. As a result, the book already achieves its goal: the burden of proof has been reversed