“The success of any Global Compact on migration will depend on a robust framework of follow-up and review incorporated into the Compact,” said Archbishop Bernardito Auza, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations and Head of Delegation on December 6, 2017, to the Stocktaking Meeting of the Preparatory Process towards the Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration taking place in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. He made two presentations in the course of the discussions.
He emphasized that such a follow-up framework should take advantage of existing national, bilateral and regional participatory mechanisms as well as the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development and the Global Forum for Migration and Development. It should also involve a commitment to collect accessible, timely and reliable disaggregated data as well as a financing mechanism for host countries that lack the necessary resources. The principle of common but differentiated responsibilities should guide the follow-up framework.
During the Concluding Session, dedicated to the theme, “Towards a Coherent Institutional Architecture and Effective Partnerships,” Archbishop Auza said that the immediate remedies employed during the height of the refugee and migration crisis cannot necessarily serve as the framework for a Compact on migration. Sustainable solutions that respect the human rights of migrants and the development and security concerns of countries of origin, transit, and destination must be found for the short, medium and long-term. Short-term approaches require prudence and responsibility on the part of both the migrant and the countries of destination, transit, and eventual return. In the medium term, it’s necessary to recognize migration as a right and to increase regular pathways for migration and return. In the long-term, the Compact must respect, he said, the prior right of all to remain in their countries of origin in peace and security; this means working for development, peace, and security, for stable democratic institutions and good governance, for the defense of human rights and access to justice.
Both interventions follow.
“Follow-up and Implementation Session — Towards a Coherent Institutional Architecture and Effective Partnerships”
Distinguished Moderator and Panelists,
The success of the implementation of the Global Compact for safe, orderly and regular Migration will depend on the creation of a robust framework for the follow-up and review of the commitments made, which will be incorporated within the Global Compact itself.
My Delegation believes that the framework should include the following three elements.
First, the framework should take advantage of already existing participatory mechanisms at the national, bilateral, and regional levels to monitor the achievement of commitments made within the Global Compact.
As noted in the Sutherland report,[1] the most logical mechanism in this respect — and a good starting mechanism, my Delegation believes — would be the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF), which would be open to adjustments to respond fully to the framework for the follow-up and review that will be established in the Global Compact. As the main United Nations platform on sustainable development responsible for the follow-up and review of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the global level, the HLPF already has a mandate for following up and reviewing international migration and States committed to the various migration-related SDGs and Targets already present their reports to the Forum. National periodic review of achievements and challenges of States’ specific commitments made in the Global Compact could form part of the basis for consistent State reporting on these goals and targets within
the HLPF, with timely and reliable disaggregated data on migration. Creating completely new mechanisms could increase the burden and worsen the lack of capacities of many States.
In addition, the Global Forum for Migration and Development (GFMD) should continue to serve in building consensus among States around the commitments made within the Global Compact and to advance these commitments in line with those made in the 2030 Agenda. The GFMD has also the added benefit of providing civil society and other stakeholders with the platform needed to build private and public partnerships to deliver on these commitments. The GFMD has already proven its capacity to encourage national, regional and international coherence in the implementation of migration policy and could continue to do so.
Second, implementation of the framework requires accessible, timely and reliable disaggregated data on migration. The Global Compact must thus commit to the collection of these data and to support States as they build the capacity of their national statistical offices to gather and analyze them. Similarly, data and information from existing reporting mechanisms used by International Organization for Migration (IOM) as well as other international organizations and UN agencies should be used wherever possible and appropriate.
Third, the framework needs a dedicated financing mechanism for host countries and States that have the political will but lack the resources needed to fulfill the commitments they made in the Global Compact. This financing mechanism would rely on assistance from States, international financial institutions, development banks, and the private sector to ensure that all States are able to fulfill the commitments made in the Global Compact.
Distinguished Moderator and Panelists,
Whatever the details of the framework to be agreed upon for the follow-up and review of the Global Compact, the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities must be applied. While all States share a common responsibility for the management of migration, not every State has the same capacity to respond, and its situation may vary too depending on whether a State is the country of origin, transit, or destination. For this reason, each State should be given the adequate support and policy space needed to respond adequately to their migration experience and commitments, in full respect for international humanitarian and human rights law.
Thank you.
1. Report of the Special Representative of the Secretary General on Migration, 2017 (A/71/728).
“Concluding Session — Towards a Coherent Institutional Architecture and Effective Partnerships”
Distinguished Co-facilitators and Panelists,
The 2015 New York Declaration was negotiated and adopted in a moment of crisis when the sheer number of people on the move and those forcibly displaced were unlike anything the world has seen since World War II. While many immediate solutions have been found and the crisis seems to have partially subsided, the question remains whether these remedies have been made truly in the best interests of migrants, and thus whether they will endure or whether they are sustainable in persistently unstable situations in many parts of the world.
Our task heading into the third phase of this process is to seek sustainable solutions, through a framework of actionable commitments that respects the human rights of migrants while ensuring peace, development, and security for all in countries of origin, transit and destination. My Delegations firmly believes that an adequate framework and international response must include short, medium and long-term approaches to migration governance. These approaches must acknowledge both the right to migrate and the sovereign right of States to protect their borders and set migration policy, always in full respect for the human rights of migrants, regardless of their migration status.
Short-term approaches in migration management do not mean simply avoiding crisis or seeking partial solutions that will haunt us later, like sending forced migrants back into the same situations of conflict and violence from which they fled, or back into situations of extreme poverty in which they would be completely left behind, both of which undermine their human rights and potentially create worse situations to come.
Short-term approaches in migration management require prudence and responsibility on the part of both the migrant and the host community, in countries of destination and transit and eventual return. Such approaches invariably include answering the immediate and basic needs of migrants, respecting international humanitarian law, human rights and the rule of law, and the mutual respect for the migrants and by the migrants for their host community.
In the medium term, the adoption of policies and agreements to encourage safe, orderly and regular migration at the national, regional, and international level must be encouraged. Medium-term approaches recognize that migration is a right and responds to the innate desire of every human being for happiness, greater opportunities, and a better life. Medium-term approaches include policies that increase regular pathways for migration and seek creative, durable solutions for those forced to flee their homes. They include return policies and procedures that respect international law. These are policies that will make migration safe and orderly both in times of crisis and stability.
In the long term and lastly, an adequate framework for safe, orderly and regular migration must, first and foremost, respect the prior right of all to remain in their countries in peace and security. Migration should not be a desperate necessity; it should be a choice.
To make migration a choice, States must fulfill their concrete commitments to international development. This means a long-term approach to peace and security through preventing and ending armed conflicts and violence among peoples and States, as well as investing in jobs, education, health, and infrastructure that will allow people to remain in their homeland without being constrained to leave. At all levels of governance, it means the promotion of stable democratic institutions and good governance, including the constant effort to prevent or to eradicate corruption and wasteful employment of resources. It means the respect for and defense of human rights and fundamental freedoms. It means ensuring that all have access to justice, including the migrants. Long-term migration management requires that migrants, too, must not neglect their own responsibility to integrate by, among other things, learning and respecting the culture, value system and laws of their host communities.
While many of these commitments are already contained in the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Paris Accord, and other international agreements, there is a need to place these commitments more firmly in the context of migration during the negotiation towards the Global Compact.
Distinguished Co-facilitators and Panelists,
“In the spirit of compassion,” Pope Francis invites us “[to] embrace all those who flee hunger and war or are forced by discrimination, persecution, poverty and environmental degradation to leave their homeland.”[1]
Migrants are in search of peace and security, development and the full enjoyment of their rights. Let us work to ensure that the Global Compact on safe, orderly and regular migration will make these United Nations pillars its very foundations as well.
Thank you.
1. Pope Francis, “Migrants and refugees: seekers of peace,” World Day of Peace Message, 2018.
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