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Ratifying the UN Migrant Workers Convention: Current Difficulties and Prospects
Abstract
Although international fora are being reinforced and official statements are made stressing the importance to adhere to human rights conventions, states are very reluctant to sign and ratify the 1990 UN Migrant Workers Convention. In this article we will explore the reasons why, at a time when the legal protection of migrant workers is needed as never before, it has become difficult to adopt and implement human rights standards which protect them. These reasons relate to the general political and social climate as well as to the content and character of the Convention.
... The major countries of destination do not intend to ratify the convention. Among the reasons put forward for not ratifying it was that it provided too much protection to unauthorized migrants, it required too complex an administrative mechanism to implement it, or that migration was not an area in which states wanted an international approach (Hune and Niessen, 1994;UN). In fact, the convention has suffered from the changing climate in regard to migration from the days when the drafting process started in the early 1980s to the present, when migration is perceived as a vehicle for importing terrorists. ...
... In New Zealand it seems as if the dominant policy orientation follows that of other western receiving countries and that is not the expansion of human rights, as was the case in the 1960s and 1970s, but the protection of national interests of the (welfare) state (Hune and Niessen 1994). New Zealand's official position against ratification of the ICMR takes a holistic approach without singling out one specific factor alone. ...
The International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (ICRMW) is the most comprehensive international treaty in the field of migration and human rights. It is an instrument of international law meant to protect one of the most vulnerable groups of people: migrant workers, whether in a regular or irregular situation. Adopted in 1990 by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, it sets a worldwide standard in terms of migrants access to fundamental human rights, whether on the labour market, in the education and health systems or in the courts. At a time when the number of migrants is on the rise, and evidence regarding human rights abuses in relation to migration is increasing, such a convention is a vital instrument to ensure respect for migrants human rights. Yet the ICRMW suffers from marked indifference: only forty-one states have ratified it and no major immigration country has done so. Even though it entered into force on 1 July 2003, most countries are reluctant to ratify the treaty and to implement its provisions. This stands in sharp contrast to other core human rights instruments, which have been very widely ratified. This situation highlights how migrants remain largely forgotten in terms of access to rights; while the need to protect women and children, for example, is – at least on paper – uncontested, granting rights to migrants is not understood as a priority.
I. Observações Preliminares. II. ODrama do desarraigamento e a crescentenecessidade de proteção dos migrantes. III.Princípios básicos sobre deslocados internos.1. Nível Global (Nações Unidas). 2. NívelRegional. IV. Princípios Básicos de Migrações.V. A Proteção de Migrantes na Jurisprudênciado Direito Internacional. 1. Sistema deDireitos Humanos Europeu. 2. Sistema deDireitos Humanos Inter-americano. a) AOpinião Consultiva relativa ao Direito àInformação sobre Assistência Consular noâmbito das garantias do Devido ProcessoLegal (1999). b) A Opinião Consultiva sobrea Condição Jurídica e os Direitos de MigrantesIndocumentados (2003). VI. A Proteção demigrantes em sistemas de Rapporteur. VII.Responsabilidade Estatal: Variações sobreum antigo tema do Direito Internacional.VIII. Reflexões finais sobre o assunto.
The central question of this paper is whether it is possible to develop a defensible model for minority integration encompassing old and new minority groups that reconciles unity and diversity. 1 Respecting and reconciling these two, apparently conflicting, principles present for contemporary societies major difficulties in conceptual, practical and policy terms. If they privilege unity, the risk is to alienate minorities, provoke resistance, and endanger the very unity they seek. If they refuse to recognise diversity, they would not be able to accommodate the conflicting demands of their communities and pursue common goals, and would risk disintegration. How to reconcile the demands of cultural diversity and political unity, that is, how to create a political community that is both cohesive and stable and satisfies the legitimate aspirations of minorities, has been a subject of considerable discussion ever since the rise of the modern state, and particularly during the past few decades. The present paper contends that it is possible to address these issues by bridging two fields of research: minorities and migration. Studying the interaction and complementaritiesbetweeol anne minority groups is a rather new task because so far these topics have been studied in isolation from each other. It is also an important task for future research in Europe where many states have established systems ooldinority rights, but have not yet developed sound policies for the integration of new minority groups originating from migration.
This chapter focuses on a Sunday Bengali market for migrant workers in Perumbavoor, a small town situated close to the city of Kochi in Kerala, South India, to interrogate the concept of social protection. The market, which sprang up in response to the specific needs of migrant workers from West Bengal, Bihar and Nepal, serves also as a ‘meeting point’ of workers. Such markets, by acting as a point of contact, facilitate a network of migrant workers, contractors, traders and trade unions. The Sunday market is a place where workers seek leisure, make friends, send money home through agents and settle disputes. The migrant workers who visit the market are mainly from north and north-eastern states of India, namely West Bengal, Orissa and Assam and, to a lesser extent, from Jharkhand and Bihar and from the neighbouring country, Nepal. They work in stone quarries, construction sites, and plywood, chemical and plastic factories in Angamaly, Aluva and Perumbavoor and other small towns in Ernakulam district. Migrant labour is involved in all sectors which involve manual labour.
This article addresses two questions: First, what explains the very low level of ratifications of the international legal instruments for the protection of the rights of migrant workers? Second, what are the implications for research and policy debates on the rights of migrant workers in practice? The author argues that the key reason for the underratification and limited effectiveness of international migrant rights conventions relates to the perceived and/or real consequences (different types of costs and benefits) of extending rights to migrants for the national interests (however defined) of nation-states. In addition to their intrinsic value, the rights of migrant workers play an important instrumental role in shaping the outcomes of international labor migration for receiving countries, migrants, and their countries of origin. Migrant rights are in practice a core component of nation-states’ labor immigration policies, which involve decisions on the number and type of migrants to be admitted as well as their rights after admission. Consequently, migrant rights cannot be studied in isolation of admission policy, in terms of both positive and normative analysis. To understand why, when, and how countries restrict migrant workers’ rights, and to discuss what rights migrant workers should have, one needs to consider the potential interrelationships between migrant rights, on one hand, and national policies for admitting migrant workers, on the other hand. This opens up a new and important research agenda that has thus far remained largely unexplored.
This paper explores why the signature record of the International Convention on the Protection of Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families has been so poor, especially among the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) democracies. It does so by examining two kinds of explanations. The first suggests that the international campaign to promote the treaty was weak. The second concerns the treaty design: states dislike this treaty because of its complexity, precision, and the lack of national security ‘escape clauses’. This study finds that the strength of the international campaign does not correlate with participation in human rights treaties. It also uncovers an inherent flaw in the design-based explanations and strongly suggests that we look elsewhere for the causes of the ‘failure’ of this treaty.
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