Abstract
In 2016, the international community, in reaction to the growing number of ‘tragedies’ occurring as people attempted to move across borders, met to discuss large movements of refugees and migrants. The outcome of this meeting was an agreement to negotiate two Global Compacts, one on refugees and one on migrants, with the aim of facilitating ‘orderly, safe, regular and responsible migration and mobility of people’. This article explores how responsibility in the Global Compact on Migrant is expressive of a changed way of ‘doing’ migration. The language of ‘responsibility’ raises questions about how the international community views international migration and, by extension, prepares the ground for policy and practice on international migration. Taking a genealogical, jurisprudential approach, we follow the logic which brings migration, development and human rights language together to construct a new subjectivity: that of the ‘responsible’ migrant. The migrant human will be a rights-bearer because they will contribute to development in particular gendered ways. We argue that assuming a narrow understanding of responsibility misses expressive dynamics in the normalizing of international migration within a new framing to inform international law making.
Highlights
The management of international migration is founded on questions of legitimate access
In 2016, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) agreed to negotiate a ‘Global Compact on Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration’ (GCM) which, following a period of negotiations, consultations and multiple drafts, was adopted in 2018.1 This introduced a partial reframing of international migration more constructively in terms of development and a more pronounced emphasis on facilitating migration in line with human rights
One of the guiding principles of the GCM is ‘responsibility’ and the GCM itself is founded in the language of the sustainable development goals (SDGs)
Summary
The management of international migration is founded on questions of legitimate access. We will provide an overview of current thinking in international law regarding migration and State responsibility more broadly as this is the formal reference point for governments negotiating the GCM within the remit of the UNGA. As international cooperation and use of private contractors have developed, states are increasingly willing to outsource or internationalise core law enforcement issues, such as migration control, [...] New forms of cooperation in turn raise additional difficult questions about divided, shared and joint responsibility under international human rights law, as well as the inter-operation of different legal regimes. National sovereignty: The GCM reaffirms the sovereign right of States to determine their national migration policy and their prerogative to govern migration within their jurisdiction, in conformity with international law. The GCM formulates considerations around skill acquisition and more broadly development; and, on the other hand, it integrates very specific considerations about remittances
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