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Comments on the Rights of Others

Georgetown University, aleinikt{at}law.georgetown.edu

Professor Benhabib seeks to rely upon discourse theory to ground a `right to membership' — a right of immigrants to seek and be granted naturalization. The effort is unpersuasive because discourse theory cannot provide an answer to the fundamental question of who should participate in the conversation that would establish a right to membership, nor is it clear that persons freely and equally discussing membership rules would reach the normative conclusions that Benhabib defends. Protection of the `rights of others' might be better secured by arguing from human rights principles that guarantee rights to all residents — citizens and immigrants — than by arguing for a right to membership.

Key Words: citizenship • immigrants • membership • naturalization

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