Immer wieder wird vertreten, dass es ein moralisches Menschenrecht auf offene Grenzen gebe. Der Aufsatz klärt, in welchem Sinn eine solche These plausibel sein kann. Dazu unterscheidet er verschiedene Verständnisse von Menschenrechten und hält fest, dass die gängigen Argumente für offene Grenzen nur ein Menschenrecht in einem moderaten Sinn begründen können.

In the debate on the question of whether there should be open borders, some philosophers claim that there is a human right to go where one wants to go and to live in the country one wants to live in. This claim can be easily misunderstood, in public debates as well as in the academic debate, and therefore it needs clarification. In this paper, I proceed in four steps. The first two seek to clarify existing concepts by introducing important distinctions. First, I distinguish between three understandings of the “human right to immigrate”, stretching from an absolute right at one end of the spectrum to, at the other, the modest claim that every restriction of free movement requires some justification. Second, I introduce the ideas of ideal and non-ideal theory, and I claim that the right to immigration, as it is propounded by most authors, does not permit any conclusions applicable to non-ideal theory and yet cannot be applied without further reasoning to current politics. In the final two steps, I address common arguments in favour of a human right to immigration. Thus in the third step, I explore the “cantilever argument” for open borders with the aim to cast doubt on the view that we should understand open borders as a human right in the sense that this right must be given high priority balanced against competing normative reasons. Fourth, I also show that Joseph Raz’s conception of autonomy can be used to support only the modest claim.