• Do Foreigners Have the Same Human Rights as the Rest of Us?

    At the core of human rights is the axiomatic truth that human beings have inherent rights: that all human beings are equal and possessed of dignity and that violation of such rights is both morally offensive and legally impermissible. An alternative ordering of human relationships is mandated by exclusive national citizenship. Implicitly and explicitly national citizenship counsels the primacy of the privileged ‘citizen’ over the ‘non-citizen’ ‘other’. Everywhere we see the manifestation of this ordering in gross, systematic and widespread human rights violations: in our laws, practices, attitudes and media. Some of ‘us’ are the privileged beneficiaries of those violations: and we violate the human rights of foreigners as if…

  • Lush – cosmetic or real

    By Rahila Gupta.  The EU is on the point of turning its back on the Schengen agreement. Welcome to the World Passport: ‘this document confirms that its bearer is a human being, and not an alien’. Rahila Gupta reports on the campaign for open borders From 23 May, Lush, the ethical cosmetics business will run a week-long campaign for open borders, distribute a broadsheet on immigration produced by the group No One is Illegal (NOII) and stock the inspiring book Open Borders by Teresa Hayter throughout their network of 90 stores in the UK. The campaign itself will  kick off with Aaron Barschak and members of NOII  attempting to board…