Border abolition and how to achieve it

Abstract

It is difficult to conceive of ‘progressive’ states that continue to employ exclusionary, militarised and subjugating border controls, the chapter asks whether states are possible without borders, what conceptual manoeuvres need to be made in order for borderless states to be plausible, and through what processes they might come about. To investigate these questions, the chapter makes a series of distinctions: between border abolition, no borders and open borders; between borders and boundaries; and between sudden and gradual forms of border liberalisation. A process of gradual, cooperative, binding abolition of state controls over migration achieved through international treaty and predicated on the tenet of the right to free international movement is outlined. While clear challenges and risks surround this process, it illustrates a way in which states could play a role in border abolition that might enhance global peace, prosperity and human freedom. This type of intellectual work differs from pure critique and negation with the aim of making alternative futures thinkable.