This section discusses recent efforts to increase international cooperation in managing movements of people. These efforts culminated in the adoption of the Global Compact for Migration.

States retain the principal responsibility for decisions regarding migration. However, there has been growing recognition – reflected in the Global Compact for Migration – that no one State acting unilaterally is able to fully manage international migration. Unilateral policies tend to ignore the interests of other actors and often lead to short-sighted responses. Much progress has been made in the past two decades towards establishing the international norms, rules and decision-making processes for managing migration in a collaborative way. Yet, in comparison to other transnational issues, such as the global movement of goods and capital, much more is needed to ensure full international cooperation.

A number of factors have impeded progress in establishing a more coherent system of global migration governance (Martin and Weerasinghe, 2017):

  • Concern about sovereignty. Migration affects sovereignty directly, through its impact on border protection, economic growth, social cohesion, population, cultural and religious values, and, ultimately the meaning of citizenship. These impacts are felt by countries of destination, of origin and of transit alike.
  • Migration is often a contested issue in domestic politics. Although it tends not to be a first-order issue, migration has had profound impact on election outcomes when the public fears its impact in combination with other factors, such as economic, social or cultural change.
  • States are often conflicted about their own interests with regard to migration, making it difficult for them to engage constructively with others in international forums.
  • There is a natural asymmetry in power between countries of origin and countries of destination. Countries of origin are usually lower-income countries and less powerful than countries of destination, which tend to be dominant global or regional powers that are able to use their sovereign right to decide who can enter and stay (Khadria, 2009). This is equally true for South–South and South–North migration.

At the heart of the matter, however, finding common ground on migration is difficult because it is fundamentally about people, in contrast to the global agreements and institutions that address the movement of capital and goods. As Martin and Weerasinghe (2017) note in their contribution to the World Migration Report 2018:

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For the system of global migration governance to benefit States, migrants and societies, the very people to be regulated have to be engaged in developing and improving relevant frameworks, institutions and processes. However, incorporating migrants into such a system is exceedingly difficult, particularly since it is not always clear who can represent migrants’ interests in any given context.

Source

Martin and Weerasinghe, 2017.

International cooperation has three principal components:

  • Legal norms and principles that govern how States will address the issue;
  • Mechanisms for facilitating inter-State consultation, cooperation and, ultimately, decision-making;
  • International organizations to assist States and other interested actors in fulfilling the agreed upon aims in accord with the adopted norms and principles.

During the past 30 years, there has been significant progress in strengthening each of these components of international cooperation.

With regard to the first, for example, States have adopted legally binding conventions touching upon the rights of all persons, including migrants, as well as protocols on trafficking in persons and on human smuggling (see Smuggling of migrants and Trafficking in persons and associated forms of exploitation and abuse). The 1951 Refugee Convention and its Protocol, adopted well before these instruments, has been interpreted during this period to provide protection to a broader range of persons, including those facing gender-based persecution.

With regard to mechanisms to facilitate inter-State cooperation, these occur both within the United Nations and in State-led processes at both the regional, interregional and global levels (see Inter-State policy dialogue on migration). Through consultation and cooperation fostered by these mechanisms, States have also come to endorse non-binding principles and recommended practices in development (Sustainable Development Goals, 2015), international protection of persons displaced by natural hazards and the effects of climate change (Nansen Initiative, 2015), migrants in countries experiencing crises (Migrants in Countries in Crisis [MICIC] Initiative, 2016), and other areas (see more on areas of focus in Initiatives and commitments addressing migration). The 2016 United Nations Summit on Addressing Large Movements of Refugees and Migrants, which resulted in the New York Declaration, paved the way for the Marrakesh Summit at which the Global Compact for Migration was adopted. This is the first international framework comprehensively addressing all aspects of migration.

The third component of international cooperation are the institutions that facilitate collaboration, consensus building and the implementation of agreed upon actions (see Actors and partnerships for migration). Until 2016, no United Nations agency had as a sole mandate migrants who were not refugees, although a number of agencies touched on migration issues. In that year, IOM joined the United Nations system. Further change occurred in 2018, when the United Nations Secretary-General created the United Nations Network on Migration, a successor to the Global Migration Group, to “place emphasis on those issues where a common United Nations system approach would add value and from which results and impact can be readily gauged” (United Nations Network on Migration, 2018).

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Key messages
  • Although national sovereignty remains the bedrock principle of migration management, States have increasingly recognized that no one State acting unilaterally is able to fully manage these movements.
  • International cooperation requires agreed upon legal norms and principles, mechanisms for inter-State consultation and decision-making, and institutions to facilitate cooperation.
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