Uneven Global Migration Governance

We are living in the age of migration. In the global era, migration is part and parcel of global politics and economy, and a very important force of social transformation. However, despite the growing salience of migration, international cooperation on migration has been difficult to achieve. Nation-states as territorially bounded sovereign polities have jealously guarded their right to regulate the movement of persons within and across their borders, and until the 1990s were reluctant to cooperate with other states or actors, or to be part of multilateral arrangements for regulating migration.

Starting in the early 1990s, migration management has been promoted with the objective of turning migration into a “more orderly, predictable, and manageable process” for the benefit of all involved. (1) Since then, we have witnessed the emergence and evolution of fragmented global migration governance composed of a diverse set of processes, institutions, platforms, and networks within which different categories of migrants with different motivations move together in mixed migration flows and are subject to different local, national, or regional migration regimes. These regimes encompass legal norms, policies, discourses, and practices formulated or performed by diverse institutions and actors. While even at the national level, migration management comprises a complex web of relations, at the regional and global levels, governance of migration becomes much more complex, reflecting different and sometimes clashing interests, stakes, and priorities of state and non-state actors. As a fragmented framework that is greatly dependent on closer cooperation among a diverse set of actors and networks, global migration governance is marred by power asymmetries, the most important being the North-South divide.

Since the 1980s, in their efforts to control and prevent migration, and particularly to curb ir1egular migration, the Global North has opted for restrictive immigration policies and border enhancement. The countries of the Global North have sought to shift migration control up, down, or out, (2) and externalize migration management, which has meant the extension of migration control policies and practices beyond their borders either through their direct involvement or through partnerships with countries of transit or origin. Externalization instruments such as push- and pull-backs, interceptions at sea, detentions beyond the destination country borders, visas, other remote control policies, as well as readmission agreements have been put to use to control migration. There is a growing tendency in the Global North to delegate responsibility to control and manage regions of transit or origin in the Global South by providing funding, equipment, technical support, or training for capacity-building, but refraining from getting directly involved in migration control. (3) Instead, the Global North has opted for constructing a non-arrival regime for irregular migrants, denying the right of asylum to asylum-seekers, and containing refugees in zones neighboring the country of origin. In recent years, global migration governance, rather than binding and enforceable agreements, proceeds through non-binding cooperation such as regional and subregional consultative processes that allow the states to choose the issues they will cooperate on or opt out. Soft law instruments are mainly used in controlling and curbing irregular migration, migrant detention, refugee containment, readmission, and return. Two global compacts (Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration and Global Compact on Refugees) negotiated, prepared, and signed under the auspices of the UN in 2018 are also non-binding and are a culmination of a shift from formal treaties to informal arrangements in migration governance.

The global governance framework claims to provide a platform for the sharing of knowledge and dissemination of best policy practices; however, instead it serves as a platform for the externalization of migration management through the transfer of policies, “good practices,” and discourses serving the interests of powerful actors down to regional-, national-, and local-level actors. In this configuration, the Global South despite its growing role in migration control and refugee containment is expected to be the recipient of regulatory frameworks and policies designed by the Global North states and institutions. The agendas of regional cooperation are not solely defined by internal dynamics or emerge as a response to requirements or demands from within. Extraregional dynamics, and, more importantly, external pressures from above are shaping the agenda, discourses, policies, and practices. (4) However, simultaneously, the growing need for the partnership of sending or transit countries (or other regional and local actors) provides the partner countries with certain leverage to pursue their own interests. Through issue linkages, the Global North seeks to create further incentives for cooperation with the Global South by giving it concessions in development aid or better trade deals.

The current migration governance framework is shaped to a great extent by power asymmetries, and managing migration for the benefit of some and not “all” as is claimed. While emphasizing the neoliberal principle of efficiency, prioritizing the interests and demands of the more powerful actors in the Global North serves to reproduce the power imbalance and unequal responsibility sharing. The current arrangement rather than providing “safe, orderly, and regular migration,” leads to a disregard for migrant rights. By shifting the responsibility to actors with limited resources and capacities, asymmetrical migration governance overburdens the latter while marginalizing the rights-based approach to migration and putting the lives of those on the move at risk.

The best practice for global migration governance is a rights-based approach to migration. The current framework is unsustainable and has a very high human cost. It is high time we problematize global migration governance, recast it to create a more inclusive framework, and reconstruct it through binding norms observed by all the actors involved and based on the principles of equity, solidarity, and respect for human rights and lives.

Notes:

1- Martin Geiger and Antoine Pécoud, “The Politics of International Migration Management,” in Martin Geiger and Antoine Pécoud (eds.), The Politics of International Migration Management, Houndsmill: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, p. 2.

2- Virginie Guiraudon and Gallya Lahav, “A Reappraisal of the State Sovereignty Debate: The Case of Migration Control,” Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 33, No. 2 (2010), p. 164.

3- Annick Pijnenburg, Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen and Conny Rijken, “Controlling Migration through International Cooperation,” European Journal of Migration and Law, No. 20 (2018), p. 366.

4- Sandra Lavenex and Nicola Piper, “Regions and Global Migration Governance: Perspectives ‘From Above’, ‘From Below’ and ‘From Beyond’,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Vol. 48, No. 12 (2022), p. 2844.

The views expressed here are those of the author.