Qatar, the World Cup, and the Global Campaign for Migrant Workers’ Rights

Abstract

Abstract This chapter reviews the evolution of labor reforms in Qatar before the World Cup bid, as well as those that have been reinforced since 2015 and are currently underway. The chapter is built around three arguments. The first is that labor reforms that have occurred in Qatar have not been solely due to the global human rights campaign around the World Cup. Qatar's decision to undertake reforms have been a result of a far more complex set of factors. The chapter's second argument contends that despite the state's undertaking of labor reform efforts, their current trajectory, and their long-term potential to guarantee greater protection of labor rights, it is disingenuous to assume that lower income migrants' lives will be radically transformed. The third contention is that Qatar 2022 represents a missed opportunity for global human rights organizations and journalists who spearheaded the campaign. By focusing solely on the conditions of migrant workers as a separate category of concern, and by adopting a myopic lens that does not connect broader local and regional demands for labor rights, the campaign dilutes its potential to galvanize demands for enduring change, and reproduces the Gulf to the global public as an Orientalized, exceptional space.