Abstract
The UN General Assembly decided in September 2016 that it would start negotiations leading to an international conference and the adoption of a global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration in 2018. The agreement to move toward this comprehensive framework is a momentous one. It means that migration, like other areas of international relations, will be guided by a set of common principles and approaches. Given the well-known and long-standing efforts of various high-income countries to prevent the development of a stronger and more effective global framework for the regulation of international migration, there are obvious reasons to be skeptical that the announced “Global Compact for Migration” will indeed bring about any major change. The ambition to achieve this “Global Compact” has, however, created a window of opportunity to rethink the current approach and debate alternative (or additional) mechanisms for protecting the rights of migrant workers.
Highlights
The UN General Assembly decided in September 2016 that it would start negotiations leading to an international conference and the adoption of a global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration in 2018
My starting point is that the three international legal instruments designed for the protection of the rights of migrant workers—the UN’s International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families adopted in 1990 (CMW) and the International Labour Organization (ILO)’s 1949 Migration for Employment Convention (ILO Convention 97) and 1975 Migrant Workers (Supplementary Provisions) Convention (ILO Convention 143)—have largely failed, or at least had very limited success, in protecting migrants in practice
Together with the more general human rights treaties, the existing international legal instruments for protecting migrant workers lay out a comprehensive set of civil, political, economic, social, and other rights for migrant workers, including the right to equal protections under labor laws, antidiscrimination laws, and family laws
Summary
The UN General Assembly decided in September 2016 that it would start negotiations leading to an international conference and the adoption of a global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration in 2018. My starting point is that the three international legal instruments designed for the protection of the rights of migrant workers—the UN’s International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families adopted in 1990 (CMW) and the International Labour Organization (ILO)’s 1949 Migration for Employment Convention (ILO Convention 97) and 1975 Migrant Workers (Supplementary Provisions) Convention (ILO Convention 143)—have largely failed, or at least had very limited success, in protecting migrants in practice This is primarily because the great majority of high-income countries have refused to ratify and implement these conventions. The aim is to stimulate discussion rather than provide answers to the fundamental questions raised
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