Martin Ruhs - The Price of Rights: Regulating International Labor Migration

THE PRICE OF RIGHTS

THE PRICE OF RIGHTS

REGULATING INTERNATIONAL LABOR MIGRATION

MARTIN RUHS

Princeton University Press
Princeton and Oxford

Copyright 2013 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press,
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In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press,
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ruhs, Martin.

The price of rights : regulating international labor migration / Martin Ruhs.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-691-13291-4 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Foreign workersCivil rights. 2. Foreign workersLegal status, laws, etc. 3. Labor laws and legislation. 4. Human rights. 5. Emigration and immigrationEconomic aspects. 6. Emigration and immigrationGovernment policy. 7. Emigration and immigration law. I. Title.

HD6300.R84 2013
331.62dc23 2013006552

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

This book has been composed in Trade Gothic LT STD and Sabon LT STD

Printed on acid-free paper.

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Acknowledgments

Writing this book turned out to be a much more ambitious and demanding project than I initially anticipated. Straddling economics, politics, and law, the book aims to be global in its reach, and hopes to engage academic researchers as well as a policy audience with an interest in international labor migration and the rights of migrant workers. One of my main argumentsthat there can be a tension between promoting more international labor migration and more rights for migrant workershas proven controversial, especially outside academia, but I think it is a key issue that needs to be better analyzed and more openly debated than has been the case so far. The book should be read as a contribution to analysis and debate about an underresearched and underdebated topic of critical importance. I hope it will lead to more research and discussions.

I owe a huge debt of gratitude to a large number of people who, in many different ways, have helped me develop my analysis and arguments over the past few years. It is impossible to thank them all, and I apologize in advance if I have accidentally forgotten anybody.

My interest in the tension between openness and rights.

Philip Martin has been a key influence on my work on international labor migration. The analysis in this book builds on joint work with Phil, especially our paper Numbers vs. Rights: Trade-offs and Guest Worker Programs, published in the journal International Migration Review in 2008. I am grateful to Phil for the many discussions about the issues in this book, for his comments on most of the draft chapters, and his encouragement and support.

Bridget Anderson, my coauthor for many years, has had a huge influence on my work and this book, although she may not immediately recognize it. Bridget and I continue to argue over definitions and the role of the state in regulating labor immigration and labor marketsand I have a feeling we wont agree anytime soon!

A big thank you also to David Keen, who has encouraged and supported me in writing this book. I have greatly benefited from his comments, and all our discussions of my half-baked ideas and contentions. A big reason why this book ever got completed was that I finally accepted Davids argument that books generally get abandoned, not finished.

I have had the good fortune of working with a team of truly outstanding research assistants. The empirical analysis in , and helped me complete the manuscript during the last six months of the process.

I would also like to thank the many friends and colleagues who have provided comments and critiques of my developing arguments and draft chapters. Robin Cohen, Cathryn Costello, Matthew Gibney,Sarah Spencer, and Mimi Zou have helped me better understand some of the key legal and normative issues discussed in this book. Scott Blinder, Alan Gamlen, Michael Keith, Lindsay Lowell, Cinzia Rienzo, Alisdair Rogers, Nick van Hear, Carlos Vargas-Silva, and Jonathan Wadsworth have all provided useful comments on my empirical analysis. Ryszard Cholewinski and Pia Oberoi offered critical and extremely helpful comments on my discussion of the human rights of migrants along with the roles of the ILO and the Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). Samuel Engblom aided me in better understanding Swedens recently emerged exceptionalism in labor immigration policy.

Oxford Universitys Centre on Migration, Policy, and Society has provided a highly stimulating research environment for writing this book. I am grateful to all my colleagues there for their feedback, critical conversations, and support over the years.

At Princeton University Press, I would like to thank Richard Baggaley, who was my editor during the first few years of this book project, for his encouragement and comments on early draft chapters. I am also grateful to Seth Ditchik, my editor when I completed the book, for his patience and continuing support despite my delivery behind schedule. Thank you also to Cindy Milstein, my copy editor, and Natalie Baan, my production editor, for helping bring the project to a conclusion.

There were many points over the past few years when I was not sure whether I would ever be able to complete this book. I could not have done it without the constant support and encouragement of my family and friends. Thank you for keeping the faith in what must have appeared as an endless, somewhat-mysterious book project. I am especially grateful to my father, Sepp; Rose, Joe, and all the foxes; and Emma, Pauline, and Vivian.

My biggest thanks go to my wife, Clare, for her love, support, and endurance of all the ups and (many more) downs of writing this book. In addition to tolerating my (occasional!) absentmindedness, she has patiently and critically discussed all the ideas and arguments in this book, many times over. I could not have written this book without Clare. Thank you for everything.

When I was halfway through writing this book, my daughter, Emily, bounced into our lives. She is still too young to understand why exactly I had to spend all those evenings and nights staring at books and computer screens. But she was a constant source of happiness that kept me going.

This book is dedicated to Clare and Emily.

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