Emphasising the importance of migrants' rights

Prasad Kariyawasam, Sri Lanka's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Chairperson of the UN Committee on the Protection of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families, addressed the members at the 8th International Conference of National Institutions for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights held in Bolivia on October 24.

MIGRANTS: As globalization of social and economic forces engender an exponential increase in migration, this critical issue has now reached the centre stage in international fora. And it is no more possible to consider migration only as a national issue due to its reach and international nature.

Consequently the international community, in recent times, has taken several measures to address this complex issue in all its dimensions and aspects.

At the 60th anniversary of UN World Summit, our leaders unanimously agreed to focus on some aspect of Migration. And as a follow-up, United Nations General Assembly this year held a successful High-Level Dialogue on International Migration and Development.

This issue is complex and multi-dimensional with several interrelated issues such as human rights and development, integration, racism and xenophobia, irregular migration, smuggling and trafficking, trade and labour as well as social and economic aspects.

As a result, in many instances, treatment of migrants, in particular migrant workers, both nationally and internationally has become subjective, based on political, security, economic and social and even purely trading interests.

There are multiple regimes that govern and regulate migrants with different emphasis depending on the compulsions of each State. And there is over-emphasis on responsibilities of migrants. And in many migrant receiving countries, emphasis is more on responsibilities of the migrants, treating them sometimes as a mere "commodity" or as a burden. But, what about their rights?.

Therefore, time has come to re-emphasise the importance of rights based approach to migration as migrants not only have to bear responsibilities but also have their rights.

We need to unequivocally reckon that migrants, in particular workers and their families are above all human beings with rights and are active agents in every society for its development.

The question of migration should therefore, in the first place, be approached from a perspective of rights, in conformity of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and obligations under international human rights treaties.

The UN has given the lead to the establishment of a series of international treaties and Conventions codifying human rights norms and standards with a view to recognizing the inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family.

The scope of many of these agreements includes the rights of migrants in some form or the other. Important provisions relating to the rights of migrants are found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

ILO Labour conventions, UN Refugees Conventions, Vienna Conventions and Consular Relations, the UN Convention against Trans-National Organized Crime, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Convention on Economic, Social and cultural Rights, the International Convention on the elimination of All forms of Racial discrimination, the Convention Against torture, the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination against Women and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The International Convention on the Protection of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families is the most comprehensive international treaty dealing with rights of migrant workers.

This Convention, popularly referred to as the International Convention on Migrant workers (ICMW) is also the latest of the seven "core" international human rights treaties, which together form the United Nations Human Rights treaty system.

Most of the rights contained in six other "core" treaties also apply to non-citizens and thus provide a basic protection for migrant workers and their families against discrimination and other violations of their fundamental human rights.

However, the Convention brings coherence in the protection of human rights of migrant workers. It codifies existing standards in a forward looking manner.

The Convention protects the human rights of migrant workers at all stages of the migration process, in the country of origin, transit and employment, by clarifying obligations of the States parties.

The drafting of the ICMW began in 1980, after the United Nations General Assembly established an Open-ended Working Group to draft an international instrument specifically for the promotion and protection of the rights of migrant workers.

Membership of the working Group was open to all UN member States and it benefited from the cooperation of the UN Commission on Human rights, the UN Commission for Social Development, ILO, UNESCO and WHO.

After ten years of negotiations the text was finalized and the Convention was adopted without a vote at UN General Assembly and opened for signature on December 18, 1990.

This broad based Convention has nine parts comprising of 93 articles and in particular facilitates the protection of certain rights that are of special relevance to migrants. It also aims at assisting Governments for developing strategies to prevent illegal migration movements.

Part IV of the Convention contains provisions on the promotion of sound, equitable, humane and lawful conditions in connection with international migration.

In particular, Article 68 requires States to collaborate in order to prevent and eliminate illegal or clandestine movements and employment of migrant workers in an irregular situation.

Steps to be taken by States entail measures against the dissemination of misleading information, measures to detect and eradicate illegal or clandestine movement of migrants and to impose effective sanctions on those who organize and operate such movements.

When discussing migration management, therefore, the Convention due to its comprehensive nature is extremely relevant as guidance to States.

Therefore the Convention can provide solutions for the problems of today's international migration, in the light of changing patterns of migration.

The Committee on Migrant Workers, the youngest human rights treaty body commenced functioning only since 2004. The Committee can provide guidance to States with regard to migrant workers rights based application of internationally accepted standards to the situations faced by States.

Like other treaty bodies, the Committee on Migrant workers will develop standards on specific issues through the application of the general norms and provisions of the Convention to specific cases involving migrant workers.

The presentation of reports by States' parties under the convention will give the committee the occasion to concretely assist States and develop specific guidelines, views and opinions in the implementation of the Convention in specific situations. The Committee has already examined the report of Mali and will examine the report of Mexico shortly.

Such examination of reports of State Parties to the Convention will further enhance the ability of Committee to provide practical advice to States as to how best the treaty regime of the Conventions can protect and assist migrant workers and members of their families.

A broader acceptance of the Convention by UN Member States will engender a strong Committee that could guide States on the application of the Convention to all present day situations involving every stage of the migration process.

In this regard, in my view UN special agencies like ILO which enjoys a symbiotic role in the Convention and inter-governmental organizations like IOM can work hand in hand with interested Governments and Migrant Workers Committee in providing policy advice and capacity building to ensure a more humane migratory process for migrant workers.

Despite the intrinsically progressive nature of the Convention, ratification remains far below expectations. Parties to the Convention are still predominantly labour sending States.

To be continued