Abstract

Global economic inequality is among the most morally urgent, yet unaddressed, issues of our era. This Article documents how (i) inequality among (as well as within) developing and developed nations has been exacerbated by certain patterns of migration, referred to as ‘brain drain’ and ‘harmful fiscal competition’; and how (ii) international law has historically forestalled nations from taking measures that would effectively reduce the adverse distributional impact of such migration. Contra the prevailing regime, I argue that origin nations should sometimes be permitted to tax their emigrants’ worldwide income to offset great costs sustained from these migratory patterns; as well as to regulate emigration as a back-up measure in very limited circumstances. However, to avoid losing economically desirable immigrants, this latter authorization would incentivize destination nations to cooperate in administering the origin nation’s ‘Bhagwati tax’ on its emigrants. Having secured this cooperation, origin nations would then be required to employ this tax as the less restrictive compensatory measure. In practice, these reforms would therefore produce a more equitable sharing of international tax revenues among developing origin and developed destination nations, and mitigate global economic inequality. To establish that the right to emigrate should be subject to these modest qualifications, I analogize emigration to secession. As I demonstrate, several strong arguments formulated in the international law and political philosophy literatures against an expansive right of secession apply similarly to emigration. But certain differences do warrant recognizing a right to emigrate that is moderately, though not radically, more expansive than the right to secede.

Keywords

Global Economic Inequality, Developing Nations, Migration, Taxation of Emigrants, Income Taxation, International Tax Reform