The Role of International Law in Economic Migration

Abstract

This article analyzes the economic and political dimensions of liberalization of national rules of migration through international legal agreements, and on the basis of this analysis develops proposals for new international legal rules in this field. Proposals for international law can only be sustained where the proposed law is expected to increase welfare, and where the distribution of the benefits and detriments of the proposed law is politically supportable. There are great welfare gains to be achieved by freeing-up international economic migration, just as there have been or are great gains available by freeing-up international trade in goods, services and money. The welfare gains from liberalization of migration would be shared by developed and developing countries. But perhaps more importantly, migration can, if it is managed carefully, help to raise the living standards in poor countries. In order to achieve these gains, it is necessary to overcome obstacles to bargaining, and to assist political processes in realizing the magnitude of the potential gains. With so much welfare improvement to be gained, states will endeavor to overcome these obstacles to bargaining. The role of international law is to provide mechanisms by which one state may reciprocally induce another to take its interests into account in decision-making. International legal commitments allow states, through the give and take of negotiations and through the exchange or pooling of authority implicit in international law, to achieve this state of affairs as closely as possible.

Keywords: Economic migration, Migration, International legal agreements, International law, International economic migration, International trade, Liberalization of migration, International legal commitments

JEL Classification: F02, F10, F13, F14, F15, K33, F22