GCM Endorses Action Committee Response & Scorecard for 9/19 Summit

In preparation for the upcoming UN High Level Summit on Large Movements of Refugees and Migrants, the civil society Action Committee—made up of migrants’ rights and refugee rights CSOs—has released a response and scorecard for the UN High Level Summit’s New York Declaration. The response outlines 7 actions that states must take to improve conditions for refugees and migrants all over the world. The Global Coalition on Migration signed the document as a coalition.

GCM members remain concerned about whether a Global Compact on migration will truly protect the rights of all migrants as the New York Declaration promises. More specifically, we have the following concerns:

Well governed migration must be more than merely “safe, orderly and regular”; it must also protect migrants’ human rights and guarantee access to justice when those rights are violated. Responsible and coherent collective approaches to migration governance must focus on developing mechanisms to allow people from all countries to move across borders for purposes including to make asylum claims, to work, to look for work, to pursue paths to residency and citizenship, to return home, to return to a job, to get education or training, to reunite with family members.

In the Summit Declaration, States commit to protecting the human rights of all migrants regardless of status, but they do not specify how they will do this in practice. To be effective the negotiating process should be based inside the UN; provide a strengthened and more coherent institutional framework, minimally including leadership from OHCHR, ILO and IOM; be grounded in existing international law, including human rights and humanitarian law and labour standards; be part of a multi-stakeholder process that includes participation by civil society and migrant organizations and a process of national and then regional consultations with stakeholders. The Global Compact should provide implementation and operational guidance.

Recognizing that most migration is for labour, States must progressively improve standards for regular migration programs and ensure their effective implementation. This means that labour agreements should focus more on the rights of migrants and less on the benefits to origin and destination states, including paths to regularization and access to justice.

GCM will be tracking all of these items as negotiations move forward.

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