The ethics of abolishing passports

Abstract

Speaker: Speranta Dumitru, University Paris Cité Chair: Jonathan Seglow, Royal Holloway, University of London The contemporary ethics of immigration does not address the idea of abolishing passports. This paper analyses the ethics of passports abolition from a century ago. The regime of obligatory passports was a war measure originally intended to be temporary. In 1919, the Treaty of Versailles sought to re-establish freedom of movement that prevailed before WWI. At the League of Nations, it was sometimes pointed out that “public opinion undoubtedly expects at least a step towards the abolition, to the widest extent possible, of the passport system." (League of Nations, 1925). But was public opinion really hoping for the abolition of passports? If so, what value judgements or ethical principles supported the view that obligatory passports should be abolished? Drawing on a content analysis of French interwar press, this paper shows that “public opinion” was committed to at least three main ethical principles supporting the abolition of passports. First, a principle of dignity: compelling everyone to issue and carry a passport was perceived as “vexatious” and unjust, implying generalized mistrust and suspicion. Second, a principle of freedom of “international relations”: passports were viewed as a form of “censorship” of interpersonal relationships across borders (or what we call nowadays “transnational”), justifiable during the war but not in peacetime. Third, a proportionality principle: the perceived costs (intrusions in privacy, red tape, time and money) of border controls appeared disproportionate in light of their officially stated gains (postwar security and political aims).