UN Global Compact on Migration: Toward a Resurrection of International Refugee Law

International Refugee Law (IRL) stands on a humanitarian platform that is, unfortunately, derisory and insufficient for the contemporary time, but one, which remains a terra incognita despite the frequency and enormity of current refugee crises. The problem of the refugee is today profoundly different. The persecutors are not defeated and defunct regimes.  Instead, persecutors are existing governments, able to insist on the prerogatives of sovereignty while creating or helping to generate refugee crises.  When labeled as persecutors, they react as governments always react. They assert their sovereignty and castigate as politically motivated the human rights claims made against them.  To criticize these governments as persecutors are often the surest route to exacerbating a refugee crisis because it shrinks the opportunity to garner their requisite cooperation. In the face of dramatically and cataclysmically changed social and economic conditions, States felt obliged to abandon the centuries-old practice of permitting the free immigration of persons fleeing dangerous circumstances in their home countries. To limit the number of persons to be classified as refugees while still offering sanctuary to those in greatest need, international legal accords were enacted which imposed conditions requisite to a declaration of refugee status.

The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and the Regular Migration (GCM) is slated to be unprecedented inter-governmental agreement secured by the United Nations Organization (UNO) addressing all dimensions of international migration. It provides an extraordinary occasion to enhance the Global Governance of International Migration within the Framework of Sovereignty, Safety, and Sustainable Development. In the contemporary international migration patterns, migrants have become a resource to sustainable development. The idea of GCM mooted in April 2017 would be crystallized at the end of 2018 by adopting the GCM at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) sponsored inter-governmental conference on international migration.

GCM Genesis: The New York Declaration

On 19 September 2016, Heads of State and Government congregated to regurgitate at the global level within the UNGA, challenges presented by the international migration and refugees’ flows across the globe. It evolved a political understanding that international migration and refugee issues must have visible priority in the global agenda. Thus, 193 UN nation-states have committed and recognized the necessity for greater cooperation coupled with a holistic and consolidated approach to address the human mobility and adopted the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants (NY-DRM). The NY-DRM envisages the protection, safety, dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms of all migrants irrespective of their migratory status at all times by supporting nation-states who are receiving, rescuing and hosting large populations of migrants and refugees. It undertakes to integrate migrants with the host communities by addressing the requirements and capabilities of both migrants and host states within the framework of sovereignty, safety, and sustainable development. It requires combating xenophobia, abolishing the racism and eliminating discrimination towards all migrants by developing a state-driven process of non-binding principles and voluntary guidelines regarding the treatment of migrants in vulnerable situations. The NY-DRM stipulates the strengthening the global governance of international migration, including by bringing International Organization of Migration (IOM) into the UN orbit and through the accelerated development of a Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration.

GCM Aims: Agenda For Sustainable Development

The NY-DRM under its Annex II has commenced an inter-governmental process of consultations and parleys culminating in the scheduled adoption of the Global Compact for Migration at an intergovernmental conference on international migration in 2018.The GCM has been contemplated consistent with Target 10.7 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in which UN Member States pledged to have global cooperation to enable safe, orderly and regular migration as per the mandate enunciated in Annex II of the NY-DRM. The Annex II proposes to address all dimensions of international migration, including the developmental, environmental, human rights-oriented, humanitarian, and other dimensions. It is bound to contribute to global governance and improve coordination on international migration by envisaging a framework for comprehensive international cooperation on human mobility and migrants. The impugned GCM framework would have a range of actionable commitments that might ensure the implementation, follow-up structure, and review among the UN Member States regarding international migration in all its dimensions propelled by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Further, the Addis Ababa Action Agenda and the Declaration of the 2013 High-Level Dialogue on International Migration and Development would create an informed international community.

GCM Development: The Rule of Law, Transparency and Inclusion Process

The place of the rule of law in the global governance of international migration has been duly identified as an appropriate lego-institutional response to migratory movements. However, the rule of law required its application and interpretation in the municipal jurisdiction and as well as international courts and tribunals particularly in the context of human rights of migrants and refugees and forcibly displaced persons. Therefore, the rule of law must also be reflected in the reception policies of migrants, refugees, and forcibly displaced persons. The role of international and regional organizations like SAARC in supporting the incorporation the rule of law in municipal legal, administrative and judicial processes in the wake of global migration governance issues. Consequently, the process of consultations and negotiations for developing the GCM is being evolved with elements of openness, transparency, and inclusion. GCM subscribes to the active participation of all the stakeholders in its process such as civil society organizations, NGOs, the private sector, academic institutions, legislative bodies, diaspora communities, and migrant organizations. These elements have been postulated in the Modalities Resolution for GCM inter-governmental parleys.

Conclusion

The GCM is slated to explore the multi-layered dimensions of protection that international human rights law (IHRL), international humanitarian law (IHL), and customary international law (CIL) along with IRL offer to asylum-seekers, refugees, and the forcibly displaced migrants. The ambition of the GCM framework is to guarantee a defined range of protection to all human beings, and thus resurrect the IRL foundation from normative entitlement on the ground of exclusive reliance on national membership to substantive architecture of Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration Governance with a vision of common humanity. The GCM is a comprehensive initiative of international perspective that should not remain formally tied to States rather it must operate as a collective regarding its inception and implementation. The GCM norms must visualize the integration threshold with the empirical world while crystallizing the responsibilities for practical delivery. The GCM should remain predictable that the expectations raised by the normative reach of the IRL are often dashed in the multifaceted and problematic human world of contributory power, politics, and conflict. The mandate of the GCM ought to adumbrate the IHRL, IHL, CIL and IRL context, and allude the laxities and limitations for the resurrection of the IRL for ensuring the protection of refugees and asylum-seekers and to enhance the global governance of international migration.

Dr. Nafees Ahmad
Dr. Nafees Ahmad
Ph. D., LL.M, Faculty of Legal Studies, South Asian University (SAARC)-New Delhi, Nafees Ahmad is an Indian national who holds a Doctorate (Ph.D.) in International Refugee Law and Human Rights. Author teaches and writes on International Forced Migrations, Climate Change Refugees & Human Displacement Refugee, Policy, Asylum, Durable Solutions and Extradition Issus. He conducted research on Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from Jammu & Kashmir and North-East Region in India and has worked with several research scholars from US, UK and India and consulted with several research institutions and NGO’s in the area of human displacement and forced migration. He has introduced a new Program called Comparative Constitutional Law of SAARC Nations for LLM along with International Human Rights, International Humanitarian Law and International Refugee Law & Forced Migration Studies. He has been serving since 2010 as Senior Visiting Faculty to World Learning (WL)-India under the India-Health and Human Rights Program organized by the World Learning, 1 Kipling Road, Brattleboro VT-05302, USA for Fall & Spring Semesters Batches of US Students by its School for International Training (SIT Study Abroad) in New Delhi-INDIA nafeestarana[at]gmail.com,drnafeesahmad[at]sau.ac.in