State Sovereignty, Mass Migrations, and the Scope for Collective Action

Large-scale international migrations are increasingly ubiquitous and will most likely continue for most of the present century. The spatial mobility of economic resources, both human and non-human, is an essential precondition of effective and efficient resource allocation as mobile resources should move to locations where they are socially most productive. For that reason, economists have long emphasised the virtues of unimpeded resource mobility, including human migrations. However, migrations are not unequivocally economically and socially beneficial as there are winners and inevitable losers when resources are spatially repositioned, that is, migrations produce both economic goods and economic bads. They require collective governance and joint action by nation-states as they impact many countries, particularly major source, transit, and destination countries of migrants. This chapter shows that, to date, international attempts to manage cross-border migrations in the increasingly globalised world have not been very successful. They require nation-states to embrace very diverse forms of inter-state collaboration to coordinate and integrate each entity’s specific interests. They must be tailored and fit for purpose rather than of “one size fits all variety”. This is often best done bilaterally and/or by ad hoc bottom-up, idiorhythmic forms of inter-state coordination.