Integrating ASEAN in Labor Migration Policy: From Disjointed to Complementary Actor

Abstract

In addition to global and national labor migration policies, regional‐level strategies can contribute to the protection of Association of Southeast Asian Nations' (ASEAN's) low and unskilled migrant workers. However, there is a need for ASEAN and its partners to work with contextual specificities, including ASEAN's normative framework, conditions within its member‐states, and civil society, while at the same time also complement global initiatives. ASEAN is well‐placed to promote and protect the rights of migrant workers in the region, despite current shortcomings. However, this can only be done if ASEAN integrates itself within national and international institutions and standards, rather than be a separate level of governance squeezed in between the domestic and the global. In essence, ASEAN must move from being a disjointed to a complementary actor.