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• Bibliographical Essay: Henry B. Veatch, Natural Law: Dead Or Alive?
• I: Natural Law
• “nature” and “law” In Natural Law
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• IV: Slavery
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• The Economics of Charity
• International State Planning and Inflation
• Competition and Individual Knowledge

Rights and the “Brain Drain”

N. K. Onuoha Chukunta

• Essex Community College, New Jersey

“Human Rights and the Brain Drain.” International Migration 15 (1977): 281–287.

National governments and international organizations have exerted increasing pressure to condemn and thereby prevent the so-called “brain drain.” What is really at stake is a question of human rights. The “brain drain” actually describes the free migration of persons with scarce skills or knowledge out of poorer countries to richer ones that can reward them for the use of their special talents.

The present state of international law nominally guarantees the free migration of persons. The right to migrate is guaranteed explicitly and implicitly by a host of international covenants and national constitutions.

Extending the basic rights proclaimed in the French Declaration of the Rights of Man (1789), the United Nations affirmed in Article 13(2) of its Universal Declaration of Human Rights (December 10, 1948) the right of self-determination: “Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.” What undercuts this right, however, is a later United Nations restriction [Article 12(2) of the Draft Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of December 17, 1959]: “Everyone shall be free to leave any country, including his own, except where (3) necessary to protect national security, public order, public health or morals or rights or freedoms of others.”

Likewise guaranteed is the right to live abroad indefinitely and the right to return to one's native place. In the absence of a special treaty, the right to recall a migrant by the native country does not exist, while the right to admit and expel an alien is solely the internal affair of the host country. Unfortunately, enforcement of the right to migrate under international laws is lacking.