On the Right of Exclusion: Law, Ethics and Immigration Policy

Schotel (legal theory, U. of Amsterdam) challenges the practices of denying what she calls normal migrants, admission to their host-country. The text's central assertion is that there is a legal problem with how the sovereignty of the state allows normal migrants to be excluded without justification. Drawing on the political and legal theories of Carl Schmitt and those who have turned back to him, like Giorgio Agamben, Schotel rebuts the exclusionary basis for immigration law by pointing out the empirical, conceptual, and logical flaws with it. Offered instead is a practice-based legal framework that does not rely on a connection between law and identity, but demands a burden of justification for legal authorities seeking to expel normal migrants. Schotel also makes an ethical argument on the basis of liberal political theory and how State-control of immigration is in many ways a modern version of feudal bondage. Over-all, Schotel argues that "accounting for the interests of others is not a matter of idealism or heroism, but something ordinary people do as a matter of their ordinary practices." There is an author-index, but no subject index. Annotation c2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Bas Schotel is Assistant Professor of Legal Theory at the University of Amsterdam. The book is based on a Ph.D. thesis sponsored by the Vrije Universiteit Brussel