Radcliffe [who drew the borders of what would be India and Pakistan] was remarkable for his lack of knowledge about the region’s history or present, not to mention lack of personal stake in its future. But as an arbiter of international boundaries, he was hardly an anomaly. As a rule to which there are few exceptions, our current borders are the result of imperial horse-trading, wars of expansion and conquest, and ragged lines cutting clumsily through ethnic areas, as statesmen have deftly minced up the globe seeking to settle scores and extract maximum gain. Whether carved up willy-nilly by colonialist patricians trying to cram notions into nation-states, or the outcome of aggressive land-grabbing, our current system of borders is neither rational nor historical. In a time of mass migration and displacement—with growing diasporas and asylum-seekers finding safety in caravans on their journey to the US-Mexico border, with refugees braving and often drowning the waters of the Mediterranean, and with the World Bank estimating that climate change will result in 143 million new internal climate migrants by 2050—might it be time to think beyond outdated notions of “territorial integrity”?

What Would an 'Open Border' World Actually Look Like?

See also

End of nations: Is there an alternative to countries?
(Originally published by the New Scientist in 2014)