AU Human Rights Series: The UN Global Compact on Migration: strengthening or diluting well-established principles of international human rights law?

The United Nations (UN) adopted two global instruments in 2018 to address one of the most critical human rights issues of our time: migration and asylum. The movement of people triggered as a result of conflict, violence, persecution, and hunger, among others, has reached a peak in recent years with traumatic stories and loss of lives being observed in real time across the globe. One of the UN instruments, the Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) aims at creating a global governance structure for States to cooperate on the management of international migration. Even if no new international obligations are created under the GCM, some experts consider that this soft law instrument may be a step towards addressing the existing fragmentation of international law on issues of migration. At the same time, others are concerned that the non-binding nature of this agreement may contribute to dilute other regional or universal hard core human rights obligations that protect the rights of migrants and, as a result, weaken the international responsibility of states to enforce those obligations in situations of mass movement of people. The experts in this panel will debate on these policy and legal competing arguments and explore whether the existence of this new multilateral agreement will be a positive response to ensure further protection for those moving across frontiers.

Jill Goldenziel, Associate Professor of International Law and International Relations, Marine Corps University-Command and Staff College Quantico, VA
Felipe González, Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Migrants, United Nations
Janie Chuang, Professor of Law, American University Washington College of Law
Moderator: TBA