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Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2019

Jane McAdam
Jane McAdam*
Affiliation:
BA (Hons), LLB (Hons) (Syd), DPhil (Oxf); Scientia Professor of Law and Director of the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW Sydney.
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Extract

On September 19, 2016, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a set of commitments to enhance the protection of refugees and migrants, known as the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants. In the Declaration, all 193 member states of the United Nations reaffirmed the importance of the international protection regime and committed to strengthening and enhancing mechanisms to protect people on the move. They also agreed to work toward the adoption of a global compact on refugees and a global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration. These two compacts were drafted through separate processes over eighteen months in 2017–18 and formally adopted by the General Assembly in December 2018. One hundred and fifty-two states voted in favor of the adoption of the Migration Compact, while twelve countries abstained from the vote (Algeria, Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Chile, Italy, Latvia, Libya, Liechtenstein, Romania, Singapore, and Switzerland), and five countries voted against (Czech Republic, Hungary, Israel, Poland, and the United States).

Type
International Legal Documents
Information
International Legal Materials , Volume 58 , Issue 1 , February 2019 , pp. 160 - 194
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 by The American Society of International Law 

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References

ENDNOTES

1 New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants, UN Doc. A/RES/71/1 (Sept. 19, 2016).

2 Global Compact on Refugees, UN Doc. A/73/12 (2018); Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, UN Doc. A/RES/73/195 (Dec. 19, 2018) [hereinafter Migration Compact].

3 Migration Compact, supra note 2, pmbl. ¶ 3.

4 The UN's Global Compact for Migration: An Interview with Louise Arbour, Building a World Community (July 23, 2018), http://www.wfmcanada.org/2018/07/uns-global-compact-migration-interview-louise-arbour.

5 Migration Compact, supra note 2, pmbl. ¶ 6. The International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families is a much more specialized treaty, which is very poorly ratified.

6 Migration Compact, supra note 2, ¶ 8.

7 Id.

8 Id. ¶¶ 11, 15.

9 Id. ¶ 15.

10 Id. ¶ 18(l).

11 Id. ¶ 49.

12 Id. ¶ 45.

13 Id. pmbl. ¶ 7.

14 By contrast, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) retained primary responsibility for drafting the Refugee Compact, engaging with states, experts, civil society, and refugees through thematic discussions and formal consultations.

15 Statement by Louise Arbour, Special Representative of the Secretary-General on International Migration (Dec. 11, 2018), http://www.un.org/en/conf/migration/assets/pdf/GCM-Statements/closingremarksarbour.pdf.

16 Migration Compact, supra note 2, ¶ 14.

17 Id.