Patrick Taran - Defending a rights based approach to migration in the age of globalization
Submitted by admin on 15 December, 2006 - 18:23.
English
<!--[endif]-->(1) Prepared by Patrick Taran, Senior Migration Specialist, ILO.
Patrick Taran is today a leading international specialist on migration and migrants' human rights, with 27 years of professional experience in migration and refugee work at local, national and global levels. Mr. Taran is Senior Migration Specialist with the International Migration Branch of the International Labour Office (ILO) in Geneva.
Defending a rights based approach to migration in the age of globalization (1)
Migration today is about work. About decent work. And about work relations.
Of the 191 million people living outside countries of birth or citizenship, some 90 million are economically active (2). Most migrants and immigrants of working age are engaged in the world of work.
Migration is about work because migrant labour has become a key feature in meeting economic, labour market and productivity challenges in a globalized economy.
Migration provides responses to fast-changing needs for skills and personnel resulting from technological advances, changes in market conditions and industrial transformations. In countries of aging populations, migration offers a potential to replenish declining work forces.
Migration is about decent work because migrant labour largely fills “three-D” jobs: dirty, dangerous and degrading. Efforts to fill 3-D jobs and to acquire economic competitiveness through labour productivity at low cost produce a continuous demand for cheap and low-skilled migrant labour in numerous sectors of national economies. Small and medium size companies and labour–intensive economic sectors do not have the option of relocating operations abroad. Migration is also about the absence of decent work. Much migration is not by choice. Rather, as it is the direct and inescapable result of deteriorating conditions for welfare and survival in many countries. As the ILO Director General, Juan Somavia, said, if you look at globalization from the point of view of peoples’ concerns, it single biggest failure is its inability to create jobs where people live.
Finally, migration today is about work relations. It is the cutting edge of dispute and redefinition in relations between labour and capital in distribution of benefits deriving from economic activity, in the level of protection and regulation of conditions of employment and work, and in the extent working people –foreign workers in particular-- and civil society can organize to articulate and defend their interests.
Two opposing approaches to address migration Today, two distinct approaches to migration are contending for support from governments. One of these poles is characterized by clear reference to a normative foundation of international human rights and labour Conventions. This approach is based on social dialogue, recognizing that the social partners –employers and worker unions-- are essential stakeholders. It explicitly ties migration policy to labour market regulation, labour force composition, economic performance and, ultimately, social protection and welfare. Overall this approach seeks to regulate natural and necessary phenomena.
In contrast, another approach is quite literally called migration management. It is explicitly deregulatory, making little or no reference at all to international instruments on migration. It is a fully “states owned” process, where international dialogue and cooperation on migration are developed in regional and global forums essentially outside the United Nations system. Its primary reference in government is usually with interior ministries. This approach admits consultation with other stakeholders, but usually separately from the intergovernmental dialogues and from internal governmental policy consultation.
The logic of this migration management approach may be described as utilitarian consequentialist, seeing migrants as factors of economic activity and ones that can be employed at lower standards of pay and conditions than those prevailing in host countries, precisely because lower pay will lead to creation of more jobs. A prominent feature of this approach is promoting temporary migration schemes where “bundles of rights” may be traded away in exchange for access to employment in labour markets where conditions are better than in home countries.
A Policy Agenda
The starting point for a rights based agenda is the international instruments that represent the codification of human rights values into legal norms. All international human rights conventions and International Labour Standards are applicable to non-citizen migrant workers. Nonetheless, to avoid any doubts, three specific instruments were drawn up explicitly addressing migrants: ILO Conventions 97 and 143 on migration for employment and the 1990 International Convention on the Protection of Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families.
These instruments comprise an international charter on migration providing a broad normative framework for both treatment of migrants –including non-discrimination—and inter-State cooperation on regulating migration. They provide comprehensive “values-based” definitions and legal bases for national policy and practice. They offer “ready to use” language that can be directly incorporated in national laws. They lay out a comprehensive agenda for national policy as well as for consultation and cooperation among States on labour migration policy formulation, exchange of information, orderly return and reintegration.
76 different States have ratified one or more of these three complementary standards to date (3). 11 member States of the European Union have ratified one or both ILO conventions. With 16 additional signatories to the UN Convention, it can be hoped that 90 States will soon have adopted core international standards as a basis of national migration policy.
Existing international law established three fundamental notions regarding migrants:
1. Equality of treatment between regular migrant workers and nationals in employment.
2. International Labour Standards apply to all workers. This notion was recently upheld in a unanimous Opinion issued by the Inter-American Court.
3. Core universal human rights apply to all migrants, regardless of status.
A comprehensive policy framework starts from a legal foundation, but needs to address a complex array of issues to ensure that migration benefits home and host countries and the migrants themselves.
The ILO has just published a Multilateral policy Framework for Labour Migration (4). that provides the this framework, together with detailed practical guidelines and model examples to put it into practice.
Key elements include:
1) A standards-based foundation for national migration policies and practices.
2) Informed and transparent migration administration
3) Institutional mechanisms for dialogue, consultation and cooperation, and
4) Action against discrimination and xenophobia.
Given enormous economic and political interest in pursuing a management approach to migration, obtaining primacy for a rights based approach will only come about when significant political and social pressure is generated for full implementation of relevant standards, for equality of treatment and for integration.
Long experience in this field allows me to suggest a few “lines of action:”
1) Engage in visible and well-resourced efforts to obtain ratification and implementation of the core migrant worker conventions.
2) Reaffirm and advocate that non-discrimination and equality of treatment for non-nationals are imperative to maintaining social cohesion today.
3) Make explicit the stance that all migrant workers, regardless of status, are first and foremost human beings and workers, entitled to dignity and to decent work.
4) Convene mechanisms for dialogue on migration among trade unions, civil society organizations and other stakeholders, and share common views with communications media, national parliaments, and the government.
5) Work visibly and publicly to effectively prevent racism and discrimination.
6) Build alliances and partnerships based on common agendas and interests.
Implementing a rights-based framework for non-discrimination and equality of treatment of migrants is imperative to social cohesion worldwide. It requires organizing, advocacy, social dialogue and action. Content will necessarily include promotion of human rights law, of labour standards, of equality of treatment and respect for diversity. These are the guarantors of democracy, social peace and ultimately, welfare of workers and of societies in general.
<!--[endif]-->(1) Prepared by Patrick Taran, Senior Migration Specialist, ILO.
(2) ILO: Towards a fair deal for migrant workers in the global economy International Labour Conference, Geneva 2004, p. 7. Available on line at: http://www.ilo.org/public/english/standards/relm/ilc/ilc92/pdf/pr-22.pdf
(3) Texts, status of ratifications and related information available respectively at www.ilo.org/ilolex and www.unhchr.ch
