The ethics of border guarding: a first exploration and a research agenda for the future

Abstract

Although the notion of universal human rights allows for the idea that states (and supranational organizations such as the European Union) can, or even should, control and impose restrictions on migration, both notions clearly do not sit well together. The ensuing tension manifests itself in our ambivalent attitude towards migration, but also affects the border guards who have to implement national and supranational policies on migration. Little has been written on the ethics that has to guide these border guards in their work. Juxtaposing the ethics of border guarding against the ethics of the somewhat related military profession, this article attempts to (a) describe border guarding as a comparatively rule-guided profession; (b) outline the aim and basis of the ethics education that prepares border guards for their work; and (c) propose a research agenda for the future that should further our understanding of (a) and (b), but also help us improve the moral education of border guards.

Keywords:

• Border guards
• borders
• human rights
• migration
• virtue ethics

Notes

1. Border guard during a workshop on moral dilemmas in border guarding.

2. An abbreviation of frontières extérieures (French for external borders).

3. Levinasian ethics, stressing our ethical responsibilities in face-to-face encounters, is another interesting (and somewhat related) approach in his context.

4. The Frontex Code of Conduct for all Persons Participating in Frontex Activities can be found at http://frontex.europa.eu/assets/Publications/General/Code_of_Conduct_applicable_to_all_persons_participating_in_Frontex_operational_activities.pdf.

5. The Code of Conduct for Joint Return Operations can be found at http://frontex.europa.eu/assets/Publications/General/Code_of_Conduct_for_Joint_Return_Operations.pdf. There is also a fifty page guide for joint return operations, to be found at http://frontex.europa.eu/assets/Publications/General/Guide_for_Joint_Return_Operations_by_Air_coordinated_by_Frontex.pdf.

6. But there are situations in which the distinction between ethical dilemmas and tests of integrity are blurred. For instance, one might think that loyalty to colleagues is nothing more than such a pressure. But if loyalty amounts to a value, and in most uniformed professions it is in fact a rather important one, then there is a dilemma again (see also Coleman 2009, 112).

7. In theory, the utilitarian credo that all should count for the same would, if taken seriously and implemented with some objectivity, have the favorable outcome that more migrants would see their rights respected. In practice, many authors think utilitarianism is prone to be misapplied in a self-serving way, and hence consider it not suited as a basis for the ethics education for professionals. As one author writes, ‘utilitarianism would lend itself to abuse in precisely those kinds of situations in which ethical safeguards are most needed’ (Snow 2009, 560). Utilitarianism is therefore perhaps more suited as a public philosophy than as a personal moral code (Goodin 1995, 11–12).

8. This goes for both volunteer and for conscript forces (although the ethical frame work of for instance the Bundeswehr is perhaps more value based than virtue based).

9. This insight is thus mainly about tests of integrity, as defined in the previous section: what is right and what is wrong is clear, but the situation induces one to choose the wrong course of action.

10. Some suggest that the insight that the situation often determines our conduct undermines virtue ethics as a basis for moral education, but that seems an overstatement. Social psychology only shows that the influence of our natural dispositions is weak. That does not tell us a lot about the influence of virtues, which are the product of training and habituation (see also Sreenivasan 2002; Croom 2014).

11. The Fundamental rights training for border guards: Trainers’ manual can be found at http://frontex.europa.eu/assets/Publications/Training/Fundamental_Rights_Training_for_Border_Guardsl.pdf.

12. Research shows that military personnel who lack guidelines to deal with morally critical situations experience more moral dilemmas, increasing the likelihood of moral injury (Schut 2015). In a way, guidelines can turn moral dilemmas into tests of integrity.

13. Only 47 per cent of the American soldiers and 38 per cent of the marines in Iraq held that non-combatants should be treated with dignity and respect (Mental Health Advisory Team IV 2006).

14. Regarding that moral responsibility, there are broader questions. For instance: borders are legal, but are they also ethical? And if not, what does that mean for border guarding? At first sight, not a lot. Clearly, the ethics of border guarding is very different from the ethics of borders; the distinction somewhat reminds of the distinction between jus ad bellum and jus in bello in military ethics. The traditional view is that a soldier can fight justly in an unjust war, and is not responsible for the unjustness of that war. Revisionists have challenged that distinction, arguing individual soldiers should not fight in wars that are unjust (McMahan 2004). So, arguing by analogue, if borders are unjust to some extent, does that mean that border guarding is sometimes unjust too?

15. This somewhat resembles the debate about conscientious objection in military ethics (see for an overview Ellner, Robinson, and Whetham 2014).

16. Martin Cook writes about the ethics education at military academies that there ‘is a fundamentally incoherent and confused welter of programs justified, if at all, by the belief that if ethics is important, throwing lots of resources at the subject from any number of angles and approaches must somehow be doing some good’ (2008, 57).