Abstract

In the last decades, an ethical debate on the question of the state's power to regulate immigration has taken place in the Anglo-Saxon academic world. In this article, I expose the different positions held in that debate and make some remarks on the open borders position. My points are the following: the arguments for the open borders position imply the illigitimacy of the state, and the actualization of such a position would probably cause the weakening and, eventually, the collapse of either the state or democracy; at present, economical and financial global power - instead of supranational institutions able to provide global justice and to protect human rights - are taking advantage from the weakening of states.