Improving the Governance of International Migration E-Book

• Herausgeber: Bertelsmann Stiftung
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Deutsch

Seitenzahl: 267

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

Contemporary states are ambivalent about the global governance of migration: They desire more of it because they know they cannot reach their goals by acting alone, but they fear the necessary compromise on terms they may not be able to control and regarding an issue that is politically charged. Currently, there is no formal, coherent, multilateral institutional framework governing the global flow of migrants. While most actors agree that greater international cooperation on migration is needed, there has been no persuasive analysis of what form this would take or of what greater global cooperation would aim to achieve. The purpose of this book, the Transatlantic Council on Migration's fifth volume, is to fill this analytical gap by focusing on a set of fundamental questions: What are the key steps to building a better, more cooperative system of governance? What are the goals that can be achieved through greater international cooperation? And, most fundamentally, who (or what) is to be governed?

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ISBN : 978-3-86793-420-6

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Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Introduction

Section I: The Transatlantic Council on Migration

Council Statement: The Governance of International Migration—Defining the ...

Setting the Stage: Toward Greater Cooperation on International Migration

Broadening the Conversation on the Governance of Migration

Issue Areas Ready for Much Greater Bilateral and Multilateral Cooperation

The Building Blocks to Greater Bilateral and Multilateral Cooperation on Migration

Putting Ideas and Talk into Play Effectively

By Way of a Conclusion, Three Simple Ideas

Works Cited

Section II: Setting the Stage

Global Governance: Fear and Desire

Introduction

Twenty Years of Evolving Governance of International Migration

Existing Tools and Their Effectiveness

Conclusions

Works Cited

Section III: The Thickening Web of Cooperation on International Migration

The Governance of International Migration: Gaps and Ways Forward

Introduction

Current Approaches at the International Level

Emerging Challenges to International Cooperation

Procedural Gaps in Migration Governance

Multilateral, Regional, and Bilateral Mechanisms: Finding the Right Balance

The Way Forward

Conclusion

Works Cited

EU Mobility Partnerships: A Model for International Cooperation on Migration?

Introduction

The Structure of Mobility Partnerships

Establishing Mobility Partnerships

Implementation

Conclusion and Recommendations for Future Mobility Partnerships

Works Cited

The Politics and Policies of Environmental Migration

Introduction

Background

Reviewing Governance Developments

Policy Solutions

The Politics of Environmental Migration

Conclusions

Works Cited

Section IV: An Expert Perspective on Human Rights and International Law

The Role of International Law in the Governance of Migration and Protection of ...

Introduction

International Law Approaches to Migration

Are Formal Instruments of Law Effective in Advancing Migrants’ Rights?

Can International Treaties Build or Reinforce Consensus Rather than Reflect It?

The Uniqueness of Migration Standards in International Law

Conclusion and Recommendations

Works Cited

Section V: Policymakers’ Corner: Reviewing the Past and Gauging the Future

The Global Commission on International Migration: Experiences, Lessons Learned, ...

Introduction

Mandate and Structure of the Global Commission on International Migration

The GCIM’s Work and Recommendations

Lessons Learned and Ways Forward

Works Cited

Immigration Resources

About the Transatlantic Council on Migration

About the Authors

Introduction

Demetrios G. Papademetriou and Gunter Thielen

National immigration systems—overlaid by a thin layer of international consultation—have fallen short in effectively managing today’s transnational migration challenges, which have grown as international migration has become more common and widespread. Yet no consensus has emerged on how to fix or improve the status quo. Governments remain deeply reluctant to cede meaningful control over who moves across their borders and under what conditions they remain. But the absence of meaningful cross-border cooperation creates a fertile environment for illegal migration and the organized crime and smuggling networks that draw enormous profits from the existence of these “gray areas.”

While the world is no closer than it was ten years ago to developing a formal, multilateral institutional framework to govern the global flow of migrants, states increasingly are exploring how to work collectively to make migration a more legal, orderly, and mutually beneficial process. Cooperation on migration management has been growing steadily, involving both state and nonstate actors in the form of regional dialogues, bilateral agreements, and the creation of international initiatives such as the Global Forum on Migration and Development.

The Transatlantic Council on Migration convened for its sixth plenary meeting in Lisbon, Portugal, on June 1–3, 2011, to explore this complex web of international cooperation on migration management and to begin to identify the areas of collective action where states might have the most to gain in the coming years and the tools and principles they should employ to foster cooperation.

This volume—the fifth major publication of the Transatlantic Council on Migration—is the result of those deliberations. The book joins the first four Council publications—Delivering Citizenship (November 2008), Talent, Competitiveness and Migration (April 2009), Migration, Public Opinion and Politics (November 2009), and Prioritizing Integration (April 2010)—in offering an evidence-based, pragmatic approach to the most complex and controversial policy debates surrounding migration.

The authors of this volume examine the potential for reform of the current governance system in the area of international migration. Their contributions—organized into five sections—are a valuable and innovative attempt to formulate ambitious but realistic policy proposals for the next decade.

Section One consists of the Council Statement on “The Governance of International Migration,” which distills the main recommendations from the Transatlantic Council’s Lisbon meeting. This chapter makes a strong case for an incremental approach to greater cooperation, arguing that it can be more productive to move slowly and first invest in building deep trust among actors. While international cooperation can be critical, it is just as likely to be fostered within policy networks at the bilateral or regional levels as it is to be cultivated in formal, multilateral settings.

Section Two of the book, entitled “Setting the Stage,” is authored by Kathleen Newland. This section serves as a chapeau piece that bridges all the themes included in the volume. In this chapter, Newland analyzes the paradoxical attitudes that governments around the world have toward international governance of migration, viewing it simultaneously as a necessity and an impossibility. Contemporary states both fear and desire global governance of international migration. They desire it because they recognize that optimal outcomes from international migration are beyond their reach as unilateral actors, and fear it because they know that other states whose cooperation they need have different and often incompatible goals in this sphere. Kathleen Newland’s clear-cut analysis concludes that the search for enhanced international cooperation on migration should begin by determining the purpose of such cooperation before deliberating on its form. Newland identifies nine such functions and six areas of cooperation that might rally states and nongovernmental institutions to coordinate their efforts.

Titled “The Thickening Web of Cooperation on International Migration,” Section Three of the book is devoted to three issues that intersect the governance of international migration. Alexander Betts begins this section with his chapter “The Governance of International Migration: Gaps and Ways Forward.” He argues that global migration governance cannot be reduced to formal multilateralism. While there is a thin layer of multilateral governance, the majority of international governance occurs through the interaction of informal networks and formal bilateral agreements. For example, states increasingly participate in so-called “regional consultative processes” (RCPs) in order to share information and best practices, which then contribute to the elaboration of formal bilateral migration agreements or, occasionally, to regional and inter-regional agreements. Betts concludes that multilateral institutions are likely to be facilitative, enabling the creation of —or coordination across—bilateral or regional cooperative agreements.

In chapter two, Agnieszka Weinar examines European mobility partnerships, which are nonbinding political processes that involve the European Commission, EU Member States, and a selected non-EU country. Entitled “EU Mobility Partnerships: A Model for International Cooperation on Migration?” this chapter assesses the development of the mobility partnership concept and the process of negotiating, concluding, and implementing relevant agreements. Weinar finds that mobility partnerships are resource-intensive (human resources, time, and funds) and require thorough preparation (all countries must fulfill a series of prerequisites for the partnerships to be successful). Yet they build trust between partners and can bundle a wide range of measures into a single political deal, making the package attractive enough for all partners to engage in cooperation. Mobility partnerships may, therefore, serve as a reference point for countries outside the European Union that would like to create multi-measure mobility packages to better manage migration.

Will Somerville is the author of chapter three, “The Politics and Policies of Environmental Migration,” which analyzes the current debate on this topic. Environmental migration remains a niche concern at all levels of government. There is no agreement as to what environmental migration is or who can be fairly described as an environmental migrant. There is no strong institutional driver among migration actors to develop governance on this issue, partly because of lack of evidence, but also as a result of the difficulties of collaboration and the long-term nature of the challenge. Despite these difficulties, two sets of potential policy solutions to environmental migration are being debated. The first solution is to adapt or create laws that offer protection to people who have been affected by environmental change. The second is to implement policy and projects to help people adapt to their changing environments. Somerville concludes that the key to a more informed policy response is likely to be greater resourcing and a clearer focus on developing resilience in affected communities in pragmatic ways, such as low-tech and labor-intensive investments in at-risk countries built around solidly informed development models.

Section Four of this volume “An Expert Perspective on Human Rights and International Law,” authored by Jacqueline Bhabha, explores the international legal framework for migrants’ rights over the last half century. Bhabha evaluates the effectiveness of formal legal instruments in protecting and enforcing such rights and reflects on the larger question of whether adherence to international norms is enhanced through popular consensus, legislative innovation, or both. Drawing from numerous examples, Bhabha evaluates the effectiveness of formal legal instruments in establishing a global migration system and enforcing migrant rights. In her chapter titled “The Role of International Law in the Governance of Migration and Protection of Migrants’ Rights,” she concludes that the dual dynamic of norm-creation and consensus-building has the greatest potential for making an enduring contribution to the reality of migration law.

Section Five of this book, “Policymakers’ Corner: Reviewing the Past and Gauging the Future,” is a reflection on the work of the Global Commission on International Migration (GCIM). This commission marked a milestone in furthering thinking on global migration governance. In “The Global Commission on International Migration: Experiences, Lessons Learned, and Ways Forward,” Rita Süssmuth and Christal Morehouse critically review the work of the Global Commission and its findings; they also make recommendations on how to advance international cooperation on migration governance. The authors conclude that the GCIM’s argument for greater coordination in governing international migration is more relevant today than ever. The four limits of national migration remain a lack of international policy coherence, insufficient coordination of policy-making and implementation, a lack of capacity to maximize migration benefits (especially in poorer states), and minimal cooperation between states. Yet their analysis determines that global governance innovations in the area of migration are most likely to grow organically out of strategic deliberations around improving existing policies and practices rather than through a top-down, institutional approach at the global level.

The appendix of this volume includes a resources section, information about the Transatlantic Council on Migration, and biographies of the authors.

With this book, the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, DC, which is the convenor of the Transatlantic Council on Migration, and its policy partner, the Bertelsmann Stiftung, hope to spark advanced thinking about migration policies on both sides of the Atlantic.

Section I:The Transatlantic Council on Migration

Council Statement1: The Governance of International Migration—Defining the Potential for Reform in the Next Decade

June 1–3, 2011, Lisbon, Portugal

Demetrios G. Papademetriou and Ulrich Kober

Setting the Stage: Toward Greater Cooperation on International Migration

The growth and spread of international migration during the past two decades2 has fueled a search by many among the large and increasing number of states that now engage the migration system energetically to achieve better, more effective regulation of migration and to make it more beneficial for all actors involved. The preferred avenues for pursuing these objectives are an expanding circle of regional consultative mechanisms and, as of 2007, the Global Forum on Migration and Development, a state-led annual exercise that regularly attracts about 80 percent of the world’s states and, in a separate event, hundreds of NGO leaders and activists from around the globe.