ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses what the idea of moral cosmopolitanism entails for states’ duties towards refugees and infers some implications for European refugee policy. Drawing on discussions in the field of global justice, it suggests that a lot depends on how we understand the structure, rather than the content, of these duties. Some suggest that we should read them as relatively weak duties of humanitarian assistance while others argue that they should be understood as strong duties of justice. The chapter argues that the difference has practical implications for the extent and limits of states’ duties in refugee protection. Discussing David Miller’s account of states’ duties to refugees, it demonstrates that framing them as duties of humanitarian assistance puts these duties under three kinds of qualifications: the fairness qualification, the indeterminacy qualification and the cost qualification. These qualifications are absent from an account that understands state’ duties to refugees as duties of justice. The last part of the chapter discusses some practical implications for European refugee policy. It argues that even if we understand states’ duties to refugees minimally as duties of humanitarian assistance, they still imply stronger commitments than the EU and its member states are currently willing to make.
