Dignity Across Borders

Dignity across Borders: Forced Migration and Christian Social Ethics

This book on forced migration calls into question the framework of the contemporary debate, which tends to focus narrowly on issues such as social security benefits for asylum seekers, as well as the social tensions arising from the presence of large numbers of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs). While acknowledging the importance of such issues, this book firmly refocuses the entire debate and re-centers it on the question of human dignity, which transcends borders of nationality, religion, and race.

Grounded in biblical experience, and underlining human dignity, Christian Ethics poses a strong challenge to currently accepted systems of international refugee protection. Assuming that all people are created in the image and likeness of God, every human being shares the same dignity. Consequently, human dignity is not dependent on citizenship of any state, but simply on birth into the human family. Christian universalism, however, also advocates a realistic respect for the sovereignty of the state within its own borders. Nonetheless, refugees can never be reduced to a national security concern. Above all, they should be perceived as human beings, as having a dignity which transcends borders.

This book provides an analysis of forced migration issues which integrates political and juridical insights with Christian social ethics. From this unique perspective, it explores the ways and means to achieve both the national and the universal common good with regard to forced migration issues.