Unfinished Business: The IOM and Migrants’ Human Rights

Abstract

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) presents itself as a non-normative intergovernmental agency which ensures orderly and humane management of migration. Yet migration and the treatment of migrants is an issue which is highly normatively charged—as evidenced by the 2016 New York Declaration, the protection of the human rights of migrants is a matter of great concern to the international community. The IOM joined the United Nations (UN) as a related organisation in 2016 but continued to reaffirm its status as a non-normative agency. In this chapter we examine the coherence of the IOM’s new position as a related organisation of the UN from the perspective of the UN as a normative agency charged with assuring that its members protect human rights. We focus on two anomalies. First, there is a conflict between the IOM’s Constitution, which requires respect for national laws, and the UN Charter, which asserts the primacy of international human rights. Second, there is a contrast between the IOM’s independence as a ‘related agency’—notably its lack of reporting obligations—and the position of other UN organisations engaged in migration, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), International Labour Organization (ILO) and Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). We argue that the IOM member states—who are also UN members—should amend the Constitution to give priority to international law and specifically to international human rights law. This would bring the organisation into conformity with the UN Charter and its UN relationship agreement. Doing so would also provide a criterion against which the IOM operations could be decided and assessed.