1. International Cooperation in Migration Management
Susan Martin
Donald G. Herzberg Professor Emerita of
International Migration
March 2017

2. Theoretical Underpinnings
Regime Theory
Norms, Principles, Rules and Decision-Making Procedures (Krasner 1983)
Focus on three aspects of global governance
International norms and legal framework
Institutional arrangements within global system
Inter-state cooperation

3. Why Is International Cooperation Important ?
Size and complexity of migration flows make unilateral policies difficult to implement and enforce
International/internal
Voluntary/forced
Temporary/permanent
Intersection of migration with such transnational issues as development, poverty reduction, trade
Intersection of migration and security, in context of conflict, terrorism and organized crime
Intersection of migration and environmental change
Growth in transnational communities

4. Why is International Cooperation So Difficult?
Responsibility to control borders, admit immigrants, and provide access to citizenship are quintessential components of sovereignty
Lack of agreement on impacts of immigration and emigration
Asymmetry between emigration and immigration countries
Difficulty of harmonizing policies and approaches even among like-minded states
Lack of legal and institutional frameworks for addressing full range of migration issues in cooperative manner

5. Efforts at Migration Global Governance
Migration in context of geo-political change
Post World War I
Post World War II
Post Cold War
Migration at the nexus of other transnational issues
Development
Security
Environmental Change

6. Post World War I Institutional arrangements defined
International Labor Organization
Passport Conference
League of Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
Successes in the 1920s
Agreement on need for labor standards
Agreement on passport standards
Assistance to Russian refugees, those displaced by Treaty of Lausanne, etc.
Nansen passport
Failures in the 1930s-early 1940s
No agreement on ILO Labor Convention
Evian and Bermuda conferences on refugees

7. Post World War II ‘Problem of Refugees’
UN Relief and Rehabilitation Administration
International Refugee Organization
UN High Commissioner for Refugees
UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees
International Labor Organization
1944 Philadelphia Labor Conference (new role for ILO re: UN and migration)
1949 Migration for Employment Convention (equality of treatment; few parties to convention; model agreement more useful
Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration
Service agency to expand immigration opportunities
Outside of UN (becomes International Organization for Migration)

8. Post Cold War Regional Plans of Action (SE Asia, CIS, CIREFCA)
UN Migrant Workers Convention (1990)
UN Conference on Population and Development (1994)
Regional Consultative Processes (e.g.)
Berne Initiative (2001)
Doyle Report (2004)
Global Commission on International Migration (2005)

9. Norms and Legal Frameworks
Strongest for refugees
Binding international law with robust ratifications
Growing for trafficking and smuggling
Protocols to Convention on Transnational Organized Crime well ratified
Stronger on prosecution than on prevention or protection
Weak for labor migration
ILO Conventions and 1990 UN Convention
Relatively few ratifications, particularly from destination countries
Limited in trade context
Trade in services (natural persons)

10. Institutional Reform Global Migration Group (2006-)
Special Representative of Secretary General on International Migration
High Level Dialogue on Migration and Development (2006 and 2013)
Entry of International Organization for Migration into UN as “UN Migration Agency”
UN High Level Meeting on Large Scale Movements of Refugees and Migrants (September 2016)
Global compact on international migrants (to be negotiated by 2018)
Global compact on refugees (ditto)

11. Inter-State Cooperation
Global Forum on Migration and Development
Outgrowth of 2006 HLD
Non-binding, consultative process
Integration of migration issues into post 2015 development agenda and other international negotiations
“Mini-Multilateralism”
Nansen Initiative/Platform for Disaster Displacement
Migrants in Countries in Crisis Initiative

12. What’s Next?
Continuing efforts at confidence- and capacity-building through GFMD
More mini-multilateral efforts to establish consensus on norms and practical applications (e.g., guidelines and effective practices to protect vulnerable migrants)
Strengthening of core institutions (UNHCR, IOM and GMG)