Abstract

Little work has been done to explore the moral foundations of the state’s right to territory.1 In modern times, the state has mostly been assumed to be a territorial unit, and no need was perceived to reflect on precisely what justifies its territorial jurisdiction. The state’s territoriality is related to another topic that has remained under-theorized: immigration. There is, moreover, an obvious relationship between these topics: the more powerful a state’s rights over its territory, the more powerful the right to constrain access to that territory might become – or so, at any rate, we might suppose. Rights to territory and rights to immigration are usefully theorized together.2 Our starting point is a Lockean analysis of the moral foundations of territoriality offered by Simmons (2001). This is a natural starting point not only because Simmons is one of the very few contemporary writers who have taken up philosophical questions about territoriality in the first place, but also because Locke’s thought, as Simmons makes clear, actually allows for the development of a sophisticated account of territoriality. This makes Locke stand out simply because generally modern political..