Bilateral Migration Agreements Research Articles

Adjudicating labor mobility under France’s agreements on the joint management of migration flows: How courts politicize bilateral migration diplomacy

Abstract France’s agreements on the joint management of migration flows (AJMs) figure centrally within studies of bilateral migration agreements. With their origins in friendship and navigation treaties of the late 19th century, the AJMs are successors to the postcolonial, circular mobility conventions of the 1960s, and are uniquely positioned for periodizing the evolution of bilaterally negotiated labor mobilities. Nonetheless, due to the European Union’s reluctance to embrace mass regularization and the EU Member States’ legislative powers over labor markets, they have time and again scotched France’s ambition to leverage preferential labor market entries in exchange for more cooperation over irregular migration. Through documents and statistical data analysis, this Article studies the case of Senegal’s negotiation of additional pathways to France for its lower-skilled workers. At the center is France’s administrative court of appeals, which has confirmed the broad margin of discretion over Art. 42 in the AJM between France and Senegal. This jurisprudence has decoupled the automatic linkage between a job listed under duress in France under the Annex to the AJM and the entitlement to exceptional admission. We argue that France’s courts have removed a privilege of Senegalese workers, which has re-politicized France’s migration diplomacy with Senegal. At the same time, retention of the prefectorial discretionary power has levelled the playing field among West and North African countries that have concluded similar bilateral agreements with France. This Article adds to the research on bilateral migration agreements by proposing a multilevel legal analysis, which studies AJMs in the context of France’s common law, EU labor and return directives, and the multilateral of WTO/GATS liberalization.

Expanding the dimensions of Moroccan (Jewish) migration: postcolonial perspectives from Venezuela

ABSTRACT Analyses of the migrations from Morocco in the second half of the twentieth century tend to view them as part of a larger pattern of South-to-North postcolonial circular migration, while Jewish Moroccan migration is deemed an exceptional national phenomenon, unrelated to the study of these global developments. Yet, Jewish migration from northern Morocco to Venezuela was characterised and influenced by a number of sub-regional, ethno-religious, linguistic, and even racial peculiarities, whose analyses may broaden our perspective on the global dynamics of Moroccan postcolonial migration: for example, the status of northern Morocco and Venezuela as a hub for Spanish settlers, Venezuela’s post-1945 open-door policy toward European immigration, and the Judeo-Spanish backgrounds of immigrants from Morocco. In the absence of bilateral migration agreements between Morocco and Venezuela, examining Moroccan Jewish migration to the latter can also shed light on the prominent role of informal networks in shaping global migration from North Africa, and explain why Muslim Moroccans did not immigrate to Venezuela even as many were migrating elsewhere. A focus on grassroots histories of this sort may help advance the scholarship beyond the narratives of mass minority departure, labour migration, and integration that usually treat Morocco and other countries of emigration as homogeneous national units.

Evidence on Policies to Increase the Development Impacts of International Migration

International migration offers individuals and their families the potential to experience immediate and large gains in their incomes, and offers a large number of other positive benefits to the sending communities and countries. However, there are also concerns about potential costs of migration, including concerns about trafficking and human rights, a desire for remittances to be used more effectively, and concerns about externalities from skilled workers being lost. As a result there is increasing interest in policies which can enhance the development benefits of international migration and mitigate these potential costs. This paper provides a critical review of recent research on the effectiveness of these policies at three stages of the migration process: pre-departure, during migration, and directed toward possible return. The existing evidence base suggests some areas of policy success: bilateral migration agreements for countries whose workers have few other migration options, developing new savings and remittance products that allow migrants more control over how their money is used, and some efforts to provide financial education to migrants and their families. Suggestive evidence together with theory offers support for a number of other policies, such as lowering the cost of remittances, reducing passport costs, offering dual citizenship, and removing exit barriers to migration. Research offers reasons to be cautious about some policies, such as enforcing strong rights for migrants like high minimum wages. Nevertheless, the paper finds the evidence base to be weak for many policies, with no reliable research on the impact of most return migration programs, nor for whether countries should be trying to induce communal remitting through matching funds.

Evidence on Policies to Increase the Development Impacts of International Migration

International migration offers individuals and their families the potential to experience immediate and large gains in their incomes, and offers a large number of other positive benefits to the sending communities and countries. However, there are also concerns about potential costs of migration, including concerns about trafficking and human rights, a desire for remittances to be used more effectively, and concerns about externalities from skilled workers being lost. As a result there is increasing interest in policies which can enhance the development benefits of international migration and mitigate these potential costs. We provide a critical review of recent research on the effectiveness of these policies at three stages of the migration process: pre-departure, during migration, and directed towards possible return. The existing evidence base suggests some areas of policy success: bilateral migration agreements for countries whose workers have few other migration options, developing new savings and remittance products that allow migrants more control over how their money is used, and some efforts to provide financial education to migrants and their families. Suggestive evidence together with theory offers support for a number of other policies, such as lowering the cost of remittances, reducing passport costs, offering dual citizenship, and removing exit barriers to migration. Research offers reasons to be cautious about some policies such as enforcing strong rights for migrants like high minimum wages. Nevertheless, we find the evidence base to be weak for many policies, with no reliable research on the impact of most return migration programs, nor for whether countries should be trying to induce communal remitting through matching funds.

International Law of Economic Migration: A Ménage à Trois? GATS Mode 4, EPAs, and Bilateral Migration Agreements

International economic migration is steered by the vertical interplay of migration-related agreements at three levels: the multilateral opening of labour markets in GATS mode 4, its regional replicas of preferential trade agreements and bilateral migration schemes. We observe a horizontal fragmentation, whereby bilateral migration agreements “correct” the high-skill bias of national immigration laws, while trade agreements liberalize the temporary movement of natural persons in highly skilled services occupations. Combining elements of both are economic partnership agreements (EPAs). The GATS Article II (MFN) brings about coherence, as it lifts the pressure from the classic corridors of migration, which bilateral migration agreements have tended to cement. Presented at the SIEL 2010 Conference in Barcelona.

International Law of Economic Migration: A Ménage à Trois? GATS Mode 4, EPAs, and Bilateral Migration Agreements

International economic migration is steered internationally by the interplay of migration-related agreements at three levels: the multilateral opening of services markets for natural persons in the so-called ‘mode 4’ of the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services, the preferential trade agreements, which replicate the GATS modalities at regional or cross continental levels and the non-trade, bilateral migration agreements concluded in a securitarian context. This fragmentation in terms of hierarchical norm allocation is further exacerbated by a split running horizontally or thematically through trade and non-trade agreements in terms of occupational skill levels. Whereas bilateral, non-trade agreements correct the high-skill bias of unilateral immigration law and the multilateral regime for liberalizing the movement of natural persons in WTO/GATS, the economic partnership agreements (EPA), for their part, combine openings for the highly-skilled with access for lower-skilled professions. In the final analysis, the most-favored-nation clause (MFN) of the WTO/GATS functions to de-fragment the incoherent landscape of agreements pertaining to economic migration. Insofar, as the MFNclause of WTO/GATS requires multilateralizing market openings, it disciplines the preferential recruitment schemes based on nationality characteristic for bilateral migration agreements. In so doing, the MFN clause takes pressure off the classic corridors of migration and thus contributes to distributing the burdens of receiving migrant workers more evenly among the WTO Membership.

Temporary Movement of Workers and Human Rights Protection: Interfacing the “Mode 4” of GATS with Non-Trade Bilateral Migration Agreements

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Bilateral Migration Agreements and the GATS: Sharing Responsibility versus Reciprocity

Shared responsibility calls on countries of origin and destination to share the costs and gains of migration. We portray this legal principle as the regulatory counterpart to MFN liberalization. The recommendations, guidelines and common understandings of the Global Commission on Migration, the International Agenda for Migration Management and the UN High-Level Dialogue on Migration and Development suggest that shared responsibility may balance out the tendency of destination countries to over-regulate and the one of source countries to under-regulate migration. Bilateral migration agreements have been reinforcing the principle. Free trade agreements, including the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) liberalize the temporary movement of workers on the basis of the principle of most-favored nation treatment (MFN). At first sight, shared responsibility may seem to be the more natural choice for steering international migration. In the final analysis, the MFN principle of Article II GATS emerges as the more efficient steering tool. As it stands, the MFN disciplines preferential labor market openings and so takes the pressure off the traditional corridors of migration, which bilateral migration agreements have tended to cement. MFN treatment allows distributing the costs and benefits of migration evenly among countries, irrespective of historical, linguistic and other ties. Without the reciprocity inherent to trade liberalization in goods, however, conditionality should be available to the MFN principle, not least to reciprocate for MFN treatment.