International Travel Security and the Global Compacts on Refugees and Migration

This article examines the security dimension of the Global Compact on Refugees and the Global Compact for Migration and explains how the global compacts expand international cooperation on travel security. Although the Global Compact on Refugees contains relatively few security‐related provisions, many of the Global Compact for Migration's commitments are largely devoted to increasing security by strengthening border controls, improving travel documents, collecting data, using new technologies, like biometrics, and sharing data. By agreeing to increase cooperation on international travel security aimed at reducing irregular migration, migrant origin states have won commitments from migrant destination states to improve conditions for their nationals working abroad. Given that both global compacts are non‐binding and states may take actions to realize some of the compacts’ commitments but not others, the actual consequences of the compacts may vary greatly and lead to unanticipated outcomes.     

Immigration Detention under the Global Compacts in the Light of Refugee and Human Rights Law Standards

The article explores how immigration detention is addressed in the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) and Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) and investigates the potential implications of the compacts on the existing legal framework regulating the use of immigration detention. While Objective 13 of the GCM largely reflects detention‐related standards under international human rights law, the GCR makes only scarce references to detention in §60. Overall, the compacts risk inhibiting gradual endorsement of the norm of non‐detention of children. On the other hand, they rightly restate the priority for alternatives to detention for adults. States should implement the provisions of the compacts in line with their obligations under international human rights and refugee law. The compacts cannot be used as a pretext to lower domestic detention‐related standards or to diminish the validity of the existing framework governing immigration detention.     

The Global Compact for Migration: what could it mean for women and gender relations?

ABSTRACT

Under half of international migrants throughout the world are women. While large movements of people, human rights and humanitarian crises, and migrant deaths are not new, the public attention given to the arrivals of refugees and migrants to the shores of Europe has compelled governments to engage in a multilateral manner. In September 2016, the United Nations General Assembly held its first-ever summit dedicated to large movements of refugees and migrants, reaffirming the importance of existing legal instruments to protect refugees and migrants, and also foreseeing the development of two new Global Compacts: one on refugees, and the other for safe, orderly and regular migration. This article examines the process to elaborate the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration from a gender-responsive perspective. It takes into consideration the advocacy role that the Women in Migration Network and other civil society stakeholders have played in its development, identifies the various opportunities and gaps within the Global Compact, and explores how women’s organisations and development organisations can promote change for women in migration under the new Global Compact.     

The European Union and the Background of the Global Compacts

This article explores the influence of the European Union in shaping and promoting the discourse, theoretical bases and political practices that make up the Global Compact on Refugees and the Global Compact on Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration. It analyses the experiences and dynamics of European Union policies in its most recent history, and explores its operational, discursive and practical dimensions, focusing on the example of the EU's partnership with Turkey.     

The Global Compact for Safe,Orderly and Regular Migration: What's Next

The Director General of IOM reflects on the next steps to implement the Global Compact for Migration, IOM's new responsibility as Coordinator of the UN Migration Network, and the role that research can play in realizing the Compact's potential.     

Shortcomings and/or Missed Opportunities of the Global Compacts for the Protection of Forced Migrants

The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) and the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) are norm‐creating exercises, in the sense of being international legal documents for a new framework that reinforces existing structures and attempt to renew migration governance globally. They were expected to further develop the protection of all migrants. However, despite some progress, there are shortcomings and/or missed opportunities in what they were able to achieve, especially in the case of the protection of forced migrants. Understanding these shortcomings and/or missed opportunities as being conceptual and institutional in nature, and to assess both these sets, this article presents the idea of forced migration and the lack of international protection of forced migrants (part 1), describes the protection of forced migrants achieved by the Compacts (part 2), and ends by assessing the shortcomings and/or missed opportunities in both Compacts (part 3).     

From Zero to Hero? An analysis of the human rights protections within the Global Compact for Safe,Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM)

This article examines the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) from three perspectives: First, while the GCM is not legally binding, the human rights obligations of states which underpin the GCM are. The application of international human rights law to everyone, including migrants, has led to frictions in the inter‐governmental negotiation process, with some states declining to sign the GCM. States cannot relieve themselves of the human rights obligations to which they are already, voluntarily, bound by refusing to sign the GCM. Second, the GCM asserts the human rights of migrants, and by implication condemns state practices contrary thereto, but it also yields to political sensitivities. Thus, we encounter a Compact that defends existing human rights standards, but concurrently submits to political will and tolerates conditions of vulnerability. Third, the GCM’s implementation depends upon, as yet undefined, partnerships with non‐State actors and monitoring against human rights standards.     

Closing the Gap? Gender and the Global Compacts for Migration and Refugees

Migrant women's organizations, UN Women, and civil society advocacy networks have mobilized to call for greater gender‐responsiveness in migration governance. The development of the Global Compacts on Migration and Refugees presented an important opportunity to continue enhancing the international framework for protecting the rights of women and men on the move. This article asks: How has gender been understood/invoked during proceedings leading up to their adoption? In what ways is it incorporated in the resulting compacts and their operationalization? What are the gains and missed opportunities for gender‐responsiveness? Drawing on data gathered through participant observation in the global compact on migration preparatory meetings and member state negotiations in Geneva and New York, and policy analysis of the drafts of both compacts, this paper aims to determine the extent to which the compacts, and the plans to operationalize them, serve to widen or close the gender gap.     

The UN Global Compact for Safe,Orderly and Regular Migration: Its Impact on Asia

This article focuses on the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM), a landmark international document that builds on the momentum of a decade of initiatives at the international level on migration governance, and its impact on Asia from the perspective of South Asia, Southeast Asia, China, and South Korea. While none of these countries voted against the adoption of the GCM, there are significant differences in how individual countries approached the commitments made in the GCM. These perspectives were articulated in a webinar hosted by Metropolis Asia on 20 June 2018 and in governmental statements made at the UN international conference when the GCM was adopted. This article also discusses the challenges confronting the implementation of the GCM. While the Compact resulted from inclusive and intensive negotiations and many compromises, the road towards realizing its goals will be at least as challenging as the road that led to its adoption. In spite of these challenges, the GCM is a ground‐breaking representation of the first multilateral framework for migration governance. Its success rests upon the recognition that addressing the challenges and maximizing the benefits of migration require true international cooperation, renewed commitment and meaningful action on the commitments agreed to.     

Protecting and Benchmarking Migrants’ Rights: An Analysis of the Global Compact for Safe,Orderly and Regular Migration

The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration (GCM) was to be “guided by human rights law and standards” in recognition of the rights of international migrants, who are currently protected by an overlapping patchwork of treaties and international law. The GCM contains many laudable commitments that, if implemented, will ensure that states more consistently respect, protect, and fulfil the rights of all migrants and also that states incorporate data on migration into a more cohesive governance regime that does more to promote cooperation on the issue of international migration. However, many concerns remain. Using a legal analysis and cross‐national policy data, we find that the GCM neither fully articulates existing law nor makes use of international consensus to expand the rights of migrants. In its first section, this article provides a concise analysis of the GCM's compliance with a set of core principles of existing international human rights law regarding migrants. In the second section, we apply a novel instrument to create an objective, cross‐national accounting of the laws protecting migrants’ rights in various national legal frameworks. Focusing on a sample of five diverse destination and sending countries, the results suggest we are close to an international consensus on the protection of a core set of migrants’ rights. This analysis should help prioritize the work necessary to implement the GCM.     

National Governance Frameworks in the Global Compact on Refugees: Dangers and Opportunities

This article examines the treatment of national governance frameworks in the Global Compact on Refugees. Given that national governance frameworks are the primary determinants of whether a refugee can live safely, move freely, work, and access state and private services such as education, healthcare, banking and justice, their treatment in the Global Compact has important implications for future prospects for local integration, the durable solution least‐often discussed but most likely to become the de facto reality for most of the world's refugees.     

Role of Regional Consultative Processes in the lead up to the Negotiations of Global Compact on Migration: The Case of Africa

Regional consultative process was part of the preparations for the negotiations of the Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM). In Africa, the process was managed by the AU, UNECA and IOM and produced the Continental Report that fed into the global report of the UN Secretary General and the Common African Position (CAP) to the GCM. They were endorsed at the highest political level and guided the African states during the compact's negotiations. The article examines the regional consultations and development of these two documents, and highlights their history and normative contents that reflected on the performance of Africa during the negotiations and contributions to the outcome of the GCM. The African member states negotiated as a group, they spoke with one voice and made constructive alliances. Through process‐tracing, the article determines that Africa impacted and made significant contributions to the outcome of the GCM.     

A Cross‐Atlantic Dialogue: The Progress of Research and Theory in the Study of International Migration

The articles included in this issue were originally presented at a conference on Conceptual and Methodological Developments in the Study of International Migration held at Princeton University in May 2003. The conference was jointly sponsored by the Committee on International Migration of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), the Center for Migration and Development (CMD) at Princeton, and this journal. Its purpose was to review recent innovations in this field, both in theory and empirical research, across both sides of the Atlantic. The conference was deliberately organized as a sequel to a similar event convened by the SSRC on Sanibel Island in January 1996 in order to assess the state of international migration studies within the United States from an inter‐disciplinary perspective. A selection of articles from that conference was published as a special issue of International Migration Review (Vol. 31, No. 4, Winter), and the full set of articles was published as the Handbook of International Migration: The American Experience (Hirschman, Kasinitz and DeWind, 1999).     

State Immigration Policies: The Role of State Compacts and Interest Groups on Immigration Legislation

US states are active in enacting immigration policies, which vary widely and have substantial impact on the lives of immigrants. Our understanding of what produces these divergent state laws remains limited. Qualitative research demonstrates the importance of a 2010 immigration compact, supported by a powerful religious organization, in shaping immigration policies in Utah, and the Utah Compact was held up as a model for other states. But is the experience of Utah applicable across other states? We test the effects of compacts and interest groups on immigration policy adoption across all 50 states between 2005 and 2013. Our findings suggest that compacts are actually associated with more restrictive immigration policy. Although states with compacts are more likely to pass inclusive immigration laws, these are counterbalanced by higher numbers of exclusive laws. Both religious and non‐religious interests groups are associated with policy, but they do not explain the effects of compacts.     

IOM/UNFPA project on emigration dynamics in developing countries

The author briefly reviews a special section of papers in this issue of International Migration. The papers focus on aspects of a project on emigration dynamics in developing countries.     

Migrant Rights: International Law and National Action

Migrant rights were put squarely on the agenda of the Global Forum on Migration and Development when it met in Manila in 2008, as the principal theme of the governmental and civil society discussions. The Forum proceeded with the assumption that migrant rights are a development issue, as well as a fundamental human rights issue. This article begins with a review of the normative framework for protecting migrant rights. While norms by themselves will not prevent abuses, they can serve as a basis for advocating implementation of policies and programs to achieve these goals. We argue that there is ample international law setting out the basic rights of migrants even though the principal migrant‐centric instruments are not widely ratified. Failures in protecting migrant rights arise from the lack of implementation of these standards at the national level. The article then discusses a range of programs, mostly implemented by or in destination countries, which hold potential for overcoming barriers to the protection of the rights of migrants. These practical steps can be found in a wide array of countries, most of which have not become party to the Migrant Workers Convention. The article concludes that these initiatives have been implemented in an ad hoc manner, necessitating a more systematic approach at the national level to the protection of migrant rights.     

Introduction: Special issue on Global Lesbian Cinema

This article offers a brief introduction to this special issue on Global Lesbian Cinema. This issue particularly highlights the importance of recognizing lesbian discourse as a separate, related piece of the discourse of queer transnational and global cinema. Subsequently, brief summaries of the eight articles of this collection are provided.     

Making connections: Global Production Networks and World City Networks

This article offers a sympathetic critique of recent attempts to forge a dialogue between Global Commodity Chain (GCC) and World City Network (WCN) approaches to global economic change. While broadly supportive of the endeavour, we make three observations about this ongoing project. First, we question the utility of emphasizing the common roots of these approaches in World Systems Theory given that both have subsequently moved into new epistemological terrain and, additionally, that the language of core and periphery seems ever less pertinent to global economic realities. Second, we seek to highlight the potential dangers of essentializing the global system as one that is primarily shaped by certain kinds of connections – namely the intra-firm relationships of advanced producer service firms – between certain kinds of cities – namely the leading tiers of global cities. Third, we point to the need to expand the interpretations of relationality within global networks to include a wider variety of actors, particularly beyond the corporate realm, and to explore the dynamic power relations between those actors. We also discuss the methodological challenges of expanding the purview of research in this way. This commentary has been stimulated by the articles in the special issue of Global Networks on 'World City Networks and Global Commodity Chains'.     

The Impact of GCR on Local Governments and Syrian Refugees in Turkey

In the last couple of years, more than 3.6 million Syrian refugees have been hosted under the “temporary protection” scheme in Turkey. Despite these high numbers Turkey did not have a centralized refugee settlement and integration policy. As a result, various stakeholders including local governments have played critical roles in providing refugee assistance services. This research looks at the role of local governments in delivering services evolving from emergency response to local integration. This article argues that this role with respect to the United Nations’ Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) has to be further strengthened. The data for this research were collected through a comprehensive study based on interviews and surveys carried out in ?stanbul with local authorities, ?stanbul Metropolitan Municipality, and its 39 district municipalities in 2016‐2017. Although this research has its focus on ?stanbul as the selected case study, the findings can reveal conclusions relevant to global implications and perspectives.     

World Cities and Global Commodity Chains: an introduction

The purpose of this special anniversary issue is to assess the possible cross-fertilization between two prominent analytical frameworks: the World City Network framework, in which researchers have studied the emergence of a globalized urban system for the provision of a host of advanced corporate services; and the Global Commodity Chain framework, in which researchers have scrutinized the interconnected functions, operations and transactions through which specific commodities are produced, distributed and consumed in a globalized economy. These two approaches have developed in parallel but have rarely been brought together. This introductory essay identifies the common roots and recent history of these two frameworks, and outlines how the six articles contribute to their theoretical and empirical cross-fertilization.