What is a Compact? Migrantss Rights and State Responsibilities Regarding the Design of the UN Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration

Self Cite

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.

Section: The Global Compact On Migration: a Cooperative Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Global Compact On Migration: a Cooperative Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Guild

Basaran

Allinson

2019

Self Cite

“…through legally binding norms) and/or in terms of content. Perhaps the only possible way to find compromise and achieve a new framework for migration governance in the current international scenario was through documents “[b]etween the hard law commitments of the conventions and the ‘soft’ instruments of reports and recommendations falls the form of a compact” (Gammeltoft‐Hansen et al., ).…”

Section: Creating Protection For Forced Migrant In the Compactsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Jubilut

Casagrande

2019

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).

“…Both compacts stress that they are not legally binding and aim to facilitate states’ cooperation in the respective fields (GCM: §7; GCR: §4). The legal nature of the compacts already steered scholarly debates and academics generally agree that the compacts should be considered soft law instruments (Gammeltoft‐Hansen et al., ; Peters, ; Bufalini, ). The soft law status of the GCR and GCM does not imply that the compacts could not have far‐reaching normative implications.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Majcher¹

2019

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.