What is ‘The Global Compact” and why is it important?

In the lead up to the by elections on ‘Super Saturday’ Peter Dutton announced to Ray Hadley that Australia was not signing the Global Compact on basis of our sovereignty.

Well of course he does not have the full facts and certainly didn’t tell them.

So what is The Global Compact?

Carolina Gottardo, Director Jesuit Refugee Service Australia, provides a readable informative summary.  She has participated in the development of the GCM process since the beginning and has attended most of the GCM’s negotiations as a representative for Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network.

Eureka Street 5 August 2018

“In September 2016, world leaders signed the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants (New York Declaration), a commitment to ‘save lives, protect rights, and share responsibility on a global scale’ for people on the move. One of the key manifestations of this commitment was for member states to develop a Global Compact on Refugees (GCR), and a Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) in 2018. Australia, a successful multicultural country built on migration, must adopt the GCM.

The GCM is a historic development in the global governance of migration. It is the first universal instrument to provide common frameworks, guiding principles and approaches to deal with international migration.   It has been developed over 18 months of multi-stakeholder consultations and six rounds of negotiations between UN member states with conflicting interests….

The final draft, completed on 18 July 2018 is a comprehensive document that ‘sets out common understandings, shared responsibilities and unity of purpose regarding migration’. It is a call and manifesto for improving cooperation on international migration that all but two countries (the United States of America and Hungary) are likely to adopt in December 2018.”

Read more of this article  Migration compact will benefit Australia

Kathleen Newland says

“The vision the Global Compact for Migration articulates has two core elements: cutting down on the negative factors that compel people to leave their homes—from poverty and a lack of opportunity to high crime rates and climate change—while amplifying the benefits that migration can bring individuals, communities, and countries of origin and destination. It is an ambitious document, balancing the rights of individuals with the prerogatives of states, emphasizing both the importance of rules and the need for flexibility in applying them. The compact asserts that migration policy-making should be guided by improved data and empirical evidence, while recognizing that governments have different priorities, capabilities, and resources. And it acknowledges that states have responsibilities to each other in migration matters as well as a duty to protect people on the move. Human rights do not stop at borders; migrants have the same fundamental rights as any other people, regardless of where they are or what their migration status is.”

Read more of this concise article  Global Compact Lays the Groundwork for International Cooperation on Migration