Muddying the waters: migration management in the global commons

Abstract

Advanced liberal democratic states interdict migrants on the High Seas global commons. Why have liberal states engaged in this practice over the past four decades? Deterrence and humanitarian rescue explain part of this puzzle, but they are insufficient for understanding the patterns and justifications for migrant interdiction on the High Seas. Tension between states promoting international human rights and circumventing those obligations challenges expectations of liberal state behavior. International relations scholars must incorporate the global commons when explaining state behavior; ungoverned areas create exceptional zones for states to partially suspend their standard operating procedures to execute policies furthering their interests. We argue that liberal states use the regulatory gray zones of the High Seas to ‘muddy the waters’ in order to advance their security interests. States with the highest domestic refugee protections have incentives to circumvent their own obligations, which vary over time with changes to domestic asylum laws.