Diego Tapia-Riquelme

Publication:

1. 2024. Irregular Migrants and the Demands of Relational Equality. Moral Philosophy and Politics, 12(2), 379-405. https://doi.org/10.1515/mopp-2023-0121

Book Project: Migration and The Limits of the Right to Self-Determination

My dissertation and book project provide a new theory of who has the right to control immigration and on what grounds. Against a significant body of literature in the political philosophy of migration, I argue that the right to collective self-determination cannot in many cases ground states’ rights to control immigration. Beyond the cases in which the influx of immigrants threatens a collective’s capacity for self-government, a collective’s exercise of its right to control immigration implies the exercise of political authority over outsiders: collectives create on outsiders a duty of non-interference and duties to follow certain procedures to lawfully migrate. Such duties did not exist before that collective claimed a right to control immigration. Unilateral imposition of duties is incompatible with our moral equality, and thus requires some form of legitimation.

I hold that the solution to the above problem is that the principles that govern migration worldwide should be determined democratically at the global level. Therefore, an international organization composed of representatives of member states and other subnational entities should be in charge of establishing those principles.

In my project, I also examine the implications of my argument for irregular migrants currently residing in a particular state and disobedience to migration control.

Other Projects:

Aside from my book project, I also have two other projects. In the first, I turn to questions about emigration. In a paper currently under review, I argue that Global South states generally do not have the right to restrict the exit of their highly skilled professionals in developing countries in response to brain drain.

I also have interests in how the history of political thought can inform debates in contemporary political philosophy. In a paper currently under review, I study what contemporary relational egalitarians can learn from Alexis de Tocqueville’s political thought. In a different paper, I study what the political thought of José Victorino Lastarria—a Chilean Liberal intellectual and politician—implies for the history of liberalism.

Work in Progress:

Under review:

1. Paper on brain drain and restrictions on emigration.
2. Paper on Tocqueville and Relational Equality.

In preparation:

1. Paper on collective self-determination and the right to control immigration.
2. Paper on the global governance of migration.
3. Paper on disobedience to migration law.
4. Paper on José Victorino Lastarria and the history of liberalism.