DR MAY-21

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Passage (Word Count: 598 | Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 16.9)

To arrive at a consensus concerning the obligations owed to refugees, one must predicate such duties on universally acknowledged moral axioms—those elemental moral imperatives fundamental to both shared human conscience and espoused by virtually every credible ethical framework, including the doctrinal tenets of the Abrahamic religions that encompass the beliefs of a global majority. Foremost among these imperatives is the inviolable interdiction against inflicting harm or infringing upon the rights of innocent individuals without compelling justification. It is a moral commonplace that to physically assault and arbitrarily incarcerate a guiltless individual without due process constitutes a grave moral transgression. This principle underpins our negative obligations—those that command us not to act in ways that would bring harm or injustice to the innocent—obligations whose moral weight is nearly incontrovertible.

Complementing this is the humanitarian or Samaritan principle, which mandates that if an innocent person is in acute distress and one can render aid with minimal personal cost, then inaction—resulting in their continued suffering—is ethically indefensible. Peter Singer’s well-known analogy elucidates this principle: to witness a child drowning in a shallow pond, where one could easily save them, and yet choose passivity, would be universally regarded as a moral failing. This precept grounds our positive obligations—those that necessitate proactive measures to alleviate suffering or provide assistance. These, too, are widely endorsed across ethical landscapes.

Consequently, a moral inquiry into our obligations towards refugees requires an unflinching examination of their lived conditions. Far from being passive observers, many Northern states actively perpetuate suffering through practices that constitute direct harm. Border violence is endemic—refugees at the peripheries of Europe and the United States are often met with brutality, with instances of beatings, shootings, and degrading treatment well-documented. Detention policies, such as those enacted through arrangements between Libya and Italy, confine refugees to squalid centres rife with disease, abuse, and even slavery. Encampment strategies, evident in the EU-Turkey deal, reduce individuals to existence in restricted zones marked by human rights violations, including sexual violence. Containment mechanisms operate to entrap refugees within geopolitically unstable regions, thwarting their flight from adversity and, in essence, ensuring their continued exposure to avoidable suffering. The moral corollary of such policies is equivalent to obstructing the only exit in a burning building or forcibly restraining a drowning child—deliberate impediments to survival.

Defenders of such policies may invoke the sovereign prerogative to regulate borders. However, even if protecting refugees entailed material costs, do such expenditures morally eclipse the imperative to prevent egregious suffering? Empirical evidence reveals that refugees contribute meaningfully to host economies and that safe, legal migration channels not only preserve human dignity but also undermine the criminal networks that thrive under current restrictive regimes. By contrast, prevailing policies are exorbitantly expensive and lethally inefficient, inflicting gratuitous suffering while failing to deter migration effectively.

The reality that Northern states allocate substantial resources to practices that harm rather than help underscores the needless and disproportionate nature of this suffering. Refugees, whose circumstances are borne not of culpability but of catastrophic state failure, are subjected to conditions that are ethically indefensible. These individuals, far from being mere recipients of charity, are claimants of justice. As such, states are bound by negative obligations—not to exacerbate their plight—and positive obligations—to afford them protection and dignity. Most refugees originate from countries such as Syria, Afghanistan, and Myanmar, where they are fleeing atrocities ranging from ethnic cleansing to systemic torture. Once displaced, they face the spectre of rightlessness—a condition wherein legal protections dissolve, and fundamental human rights become ineffectual abstractions. In this moral void, the ethical responsibility of affluent states becomes not only clear but urgent and inescapable.

Difficult Word Meanings:

  • Predicate: to base something on a particular principle or idea.

  • Axiom: a statement or principle that is generally accepted as true.

  • Inviolable: never to be broken or dishonoured.

  • Interdiction: prohibition or forbidding.

  • Tenets: principles or beliefs held by a group.

  • Corollary: a direct or natural consequence.

  • Culpability: responsibility for a fault or wrong.

  • Empirical: based on observation or experience rather than theory.

  • Exorbitantly: to an unreasonably high degree.

  • Rightlessness: the condition of being without enforceable rights.

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