The European Union and the Global Compacts on Refugees and Migration: A Philosophical Critique

Abstract

In this essay, we critically examine how the EU has attempted to shape the Global Compacts and how it positioned itself vis-à-vis the Compacts. We draw on the resources of legal and political philosophy to develop a moral critique of the EU’s position on the Compacts. We reconstruct the philosophical perspective underpinning the EU’s view of the Compacts and we raise various objections to it. Our analysis draws on a distinction between an approach to migrant and refugee protection based on voluntary assistance and one based on human rights and their correlative duties. We defend two claims: first, that the EU’s dominant conception of international migrant and refugee protection is based on a notion of voluntary humanitarian assistance, and second, that the international regime of migrant and refugee protection should rather be based on a logic of human rights that imposes binding legal obligations.