Justice for refugees: Circumscribing state sovereignty from a Catholic perspective

Catholic social thought offers a much-needed normative approach to the prevention and protection of refugees, an approach that recognizes both the moral value of communities of shared meaning and the moral claims of needy outsiders. The key ethical issues that refugees raise revolve around the pivotal issue of state sovereignty. Refugees, as a global justice issue, have arisen with the development and spread of the nation-state system. It is a system of global order that has no obvious place for refugees, and attempts to structure justice for refugees into this system have been far from successful.; An examination of refugee issues in the light of contemporary approaches to justice highlights the moral value of state sovereignty as well as the need to set limits on state powers. Such an examination shows how realist, cosmopolitan, and internationalist approaches to global order all throw light on refugee issues. Internationalist thought is especially helpful. It draws attention to our responsibilities to refugees not only as citizens of states, but also as members of transnational organizations and as members of an emerging global civil society. The natural law roots of internationalist thought, and in particular Catholic social thought, hold together three essential ideas: that sovereignty has high moral value, that there are transnational norms that circumscribe sovereignty, and that individuals are the ultimate members of global human society.; The Catholic Church is a transnational religious organization that has the potential to contribute very significantly to justice for refugees. Over the past hundred years, it has acquired much experience in assisting refugees and has frequently applied elements of Catholic social thought to refugee issues. The Vatican, however, has not yet examined refugee issues with sufficient clarity. A more systematic use of Catholic social thought provides a normative approach to refugee issues based on a carefully circumscribed state sovereignty. We can see the value of this approach by looking at the critical moral question of the use of force in refugee matters.