ABSTRACT
The capabilities approach as it is used here provides a way in which to examine how activated noncitizenship interferes with what a person can do and be and the obligations to which this gives rise. While the content of the obligations arising may differ depending on the context and location of the particular instantiation of the relationship, these obligations are continuous. Far away, a State based on liberal democratic principles has a negative obligation not to infringe a person’s access to capabilities, and to facilitate an international system that also does not inhibit capability-functioning. At a State’s border, and at the various locations where the border is experienced, the obligations become more direct. Within a State, the obligation is directly to facilitate basic capability-functioning, to facilitate dynamic capabilities, and not to inhibit functioning.
