Regionalization of Migration

Abstract

Regionalization of migration is not a new phenomenon, which is developing alongside its globalization. The globalization of migration driven by the increased migration interdependence between labor-surplus and laborshortage countries, is manifested in the growth of the number of countries participating in the population exchange and the number of international migrants, foundation of the support framework of the global migration governance, etc. At the same time, the level of liberalization of migration flows is significantly lower than that of commercial and financial flows. The territorial mobility is reducing, that may be seen as a symptom of the attenuation of globalization of people’s movements. The aggravation of contradictions between sending and receiving countries hinders the development of global migration governance. In contrast the regionalization of migration has been increasing markedly over the previous decades. It is being revealed in the growth of people’s movements on the territories of the global North and even more in areas of the South which house more migrants from the developing regions of the world than the North. The enlargement of regional flows leads to the emergence of the major donors of migrants in the North and major recipients of migrants in the South as well as enhances the relevance of the consequences of emigration for the sending countries in the North and the effects of immigration for the receiving countries in the South. The low efficiency of unilateral measures of migration governance and the lack of global partnership in this field make increasingly important the regulation of population movements at the sub-global level. The cooperation between the countries concerned is being carried out both in a formal format within the integration associations and by means of informal regional consultative process. The rules governing migration issues are being increasingly included into regional multilateral agreements. The most developed regional regulation system of migration is created have within the EU, followed with a wide margin by the MERCOSUR, ЕАEU and ASEAN. Although the regional consultative process is not binding for participating countries, it contributes to moving from de facto to de jure policy coherence in migration governance. Given the inevitable obstacles to the territorial expansion of such regional organizations and to the creation of global alliances modelled on them, regional migration regulation will remain an integral element of the architecture of the future global governance.