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| Newsletter 09 |
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| The quarterly SHS Newsletter provides information on the work of UNESCO in the field of social and human sciences. |
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| Social transformations in an era of globalization – April-June 2005 (English | Français | Русский) |
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 Imagine a world without borders, where people would have the right to move freely from one country to another, to settle down, live and work where they wish. Today, with all States strictly controlling their frontiers, this sounds like utopia.
But just imagine such a world. We have invited a few thinkers to reflect on this scenario, a scenario we have called Migration without Borders...
Nigel Harris, from University College London, recalls that there have been long periods of world history when those who wanted to migrate could do so. He believes that free movement would be economically beneficial, today and in the future. Poor countries could send their workers abroad and benefit from the money and skills they send back. Western countries need immigrants not only to counterbalance ageing populations but also to perform the tasks their nationals avoid. Mr Harris invites us to enlarge our understanding of globalization: is it not puzzling that goods, information and capital circulate freely while human beings do not?
This argument is enriched by Catherine Wihtol de Wenden, from Sciences-Po in Paris, who develops a human rights perspective and concludes that the moral grounds to restrict people’s mobility are thin. Relying on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that “everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country” (article 13-2), she highlights the disturbing paradox that sees people being deprived of their right to emigrate by the absence of immigration possibilities. Moreover, migration controls generate major human costs, from the deaths of undocumented migrants to the social vulnerability of those living clandestinely in receiving countries, and heavily policed borders may ultimately threaten the democratic foundations of Western countries. She therefore envisages a right to mobility: in a world of flows, mobility becomes a resource to which everyone should have access.
The economic and moral arguments supporting the Migration without Borders scenario have important social implications. Han Entzinger, from Erasmus University in Rotterdam, proposes ways in which a greater degree of human mobility could be managed, in terms of welfare, citizenship and democratic institutions. Migrants are frequently blamed for threatening social cohesion and we urgently need to think of creative ways in which people’s right to mobility could be made compatible with societies’ need for cohesion. Free migration would then not jeopardise receiving societies but foster intercultural contacts, thus leading to societies based on openness and tolerance.
These thinkers, and the many others who participated in UNESCO’s Migration without Borders project, bring a breath of fresh air to contemporary debates. Is it not time to listen to them and rethink migration?
Imagination, but through reason, turns utopia into an option.
Pierre Sané
Assistant Director-General
for Social and Human Sciences
p. 3 Democracy Young Women’s Parliament • Countdown to the vote count • UNESCO marks World Press Freedom Day in Baghdad / p. 6 Interview Daniel Filmus, Minister and social scientist: “I applaud the social scientist’s political commitment”, also available in HTML format / p. 10 Social Transformations Youth meet city professionals • “Urban Policies and the Right to the City” • Copenhagen + 10 / p. 13 Human Security Human Security in the Arab States • Compositions for peace / p. 14 UNESCO-SHS Prize The 2004 UNESCO Prize for Human Rights Education / p. 15 Human Rights UNESCO launches a Palestine Women’s Resource Center • Microfinance activities in South-East Asia • International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination / p. 19 Ethics Constructing international consensus: the Precautionary Principle • Eight years of COMEST: learning lessons and going ahead • A meeting of minds in Thailand • Ethics and bioethics in CIS and the Baltic States / p.23 Just published / p. 24 Calendar
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