Day 244, Year of #Mygration: Global Compact for Migration

In a nutshell, the Global Compact for Migration: 

• aims to mitigate the adverse drivers and structural factors that hinder people from building and maintaining sustainable livelihoods in their countries of origin; 

• intends to reduce the risks and vulnerabilities migrants face at different stages of migration by respecting, protecting and fulfilling their human rights and providing them with care and assistance; 

• seeks to address the legitimate concerns of states and communities, while recognising that societies are undergoing demographic, economic, social and environmental changes at different scales that may have implications for and result from migration; 

• strives to create conducive conditions that enable all migrants to enrich our societies through their human, economic and social capacities, and thus facilitate their contributions to sustainable development at the local, national, regional and global levels. 

In an article published last week by Marcia Vera Espinoza, a Lecturer in Human Geography at Queen Mary University of London, Leila Hadj-Abdou, a Research Fellow in the Migration Policy Centre at the European University Institute and Leiza Brumat, also a Research Fellow in the Migration Policy Centre at the European University Institute, the number of countries opposing the pact was increasing almost daily. The Dominican Republic was one of the countries to join "Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Israel, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia in refusing to sign the document that they negotiated for 18 months... The US quit negotiations early on, in December 2017, and was followed by Hungary seven months later”. 

So why were so many countries opposed? The authors highlighted the following reasons:

• First, states with a restrictive migration agenda, such as Hungary, consider the symbolic act of approving the GCM as a sign that they are promoting migration. The regulation of migration is not only seen as a matter of laws, policies, and “border walls”, but also as a matter of communication. Some officials believe that if a country is perceived to be open towards immigration, it is providing incentives for migration, whereas harsh rhetoric is seen as a deterrent. 

• Second, while state officials are well aware that the GCM is non-binding, those that have rejected it fear it will turn into common practice or even common law. In turn, advocates of the GCM have underlined that this is an inaccurate view. Its potential, though, lies somewhere in between. Some of our interviewees pointed out that, while not legally binding, it should be a politically guiding framework, which sets out ground rules for the long term. 

• Third, some states that have rejected the GCM are especially worried about human rights references within the document. In their view, an emphasis on human rights contradicts what matters for them: securing borders. 

• Fourth, hostility to the GCM mirrors the growing influence of new far-right movements, especially in countries where radical right parties are in power or are prominent. Ideas and myths about the GCM that circulated on extreme right social media sites are said to have influenced Austria’s decision to withdraw. 

The migration phenomenon is not going to disappear just because there is no consensus on how to manage it. Behind the numbers, there are people whose experiences can't be ignored. The Global Compact for Migration is just an attempt for the nations to get their act together in coordinating migration and curtailing the chaos that enables human traffickers’ businesses to flourish. There is no doubt that the dialogue is going to continue, and one would hope that one day, we will have a rational migrant centred debate on migration. Before we cross that bridge, there is no doubt that the politics of migration will continue to be driven by fear of the stranger.