Using the New Migrant Workers’ Rights Convention

1991 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 859-865
Author(s):  
Jan Niessen ◽  
Patrick A. Taran

The International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families is a valuable instrument both to bring about recognition of the human rights of migrants and to uphold or defend such rights in practice. Nonetheless, migrants’ associations and organizations in support of migrants tend to underestimate the significance of international conventions. Compared with the demands they put forward conventions offer too little. However, experience has shown that international conventions can be used successfully to defend migrants’ rights. In this article, suggestions are made as to how nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) can use this new Convention.

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 312-342

Abstract Article 16 of the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families protects the right of migrant workers and members of their families to liberty and security of person. Under Article 17, those deprived of their liberty shall be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person and for their cultural identity. The Committee on Migrant Workers’ General Comment No. 5 (2021) provides authoritative interpretation of articles 16 and 17 and other articles of the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families in the context of the rising trend towards criminalization of migration and increasingly frequent use of detention of migrants. General Comment No. 5 (2021) intends to provide guidance to States on fulfilling their obligations under the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families in relation to the right to liberty and protection against arbitrary detention, and other intersecting human rights obligations and other human rights obligations arising from the intersection of those rights with other human rights. The General Comment is also aimed at providing guidance to States on the implementation of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration and to other stakeholders on implementing initiatives to promote and protect human rights and to monitor compliance thereof.


2020 ◽  
pp. 8-32
Author(s):  
Muhammad Ahmad Issa ◽  

The situation of the migrants particularly irregular migrants is closely related to the respect for human rights, as long as migration is a social phenomenon with a human dimension. The question of international protection was therefore before the international community, which recommended the formulation of legal solutions to the issue of migrants wherever they may be, considering their rights primarily a humanitarian issue, with a view to the rehabilitation of this group, which is deprived of the enjoyment of the most important human rights. This trend was embodied in the conclusion of the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their families on December 18, 1990, under the auspices of the United Nations, and was the culmination of a 12-year effort by a group of international experts. There are many international mechanisms for the protection of irregular migrants, including those relating to general international conventions for the protection of human rights, the Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights Council on the rights of migrants, and the Com- .mittee on the Protection of the Rights of Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families


1993 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ved P. Nanda

The International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families reflects a compromise between guaranteeing migrants international human rights and acknowledging state sovereignty. Notwithstanding a laudable attempt to provide in the Convention a comprehensive international regime for the protection of the migrant workers, the Convention is not an unmixed blessing. To illustrate, while the Convention creates new rights, it also limits some rights migrant workers already had under existing international human rights instruments. Also, the Convention's terminology and language suffer from ambiguities and are likely to cause uncertainty due to varying interpretations.


1991 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 737-770 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda S. Bosniak

Pursuant to the international legal principle of territorial sovereignty, states possess extensive authority to control the ingress of foreigners into their territory, but the presence of tens of millions of irregular migrants around the world reveals that states often fail to exercise such control in practice. As a result, international society is faced with the need to establish standards of appropriate treatment for irregular migrants who are present within the territory of receiving states. In view of the precarious social condition of these individuals, the need for human rights protections in this context is particularly urgent, but the interests of states in territorial sovereignty are also at stake. The International Convention seeks to accommodate these competing concerns by providing human rights protections to undocumented migrants which are substantial but less extensive than those provided to documented migrants, and through ensuring states’ continuing authority in the spheres of immigration control and national “membership policy.” The article concludes that, despite the unmistakable normative value of many of the Convention's protective provisions, the Convention's ability to substantially ameliorate the human rights situation of irregular migrants is significantly constrained by its overriding commitment to the norms and structures of sovereign statehood. [W]hile the international legal protection afforded to aliens is on [the] one hand an inchoate expression of human similarities which cannot be denied, it is simultaneously an expression of national differences which are equally beyond question. (Morgan, 1988:142)


2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Desmond

Even before it had been fully drafted, the un International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families was blighted by a debilitating lack of support from States. Described by one of the participants in the drafting process as the un’s best-kept secret, it remains the least popular of the ten core international human rights instruments and has not been signed or ratified by any of the 28 eu Member States. This article is the first substantive examination of the Convention in the context of the un’s universal periodic review. It suggests that the universal periodic review may give the kiss of eu life to the Convention by raising awareness of it, re-energising civil society to more actively advocate for its ratification and forcing Member States to once again justify non-ratification.


2011 ◽  
Vol 79 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-61
Author(s):  
Robyn Magalit Rodriguez

AbstractHow do migrants assert their rights as workers when they do not enjoy the rights of citizenship in their countries of employment and are unable to assert their human rights through international conventions? This article focuses on the work of Migrante-International's Middle East chapter in Saudi Arabia. Specifically, it examines the ways Philippine migrants strategically assert their rights as Philippine citizens transnationally in local labor struggles. This case study of transnational labor activism in a region where migrant workers enjoy limited rights not only highlights how migrants exercise their agency in spite of major obstacles, but it also offers up novel ways to think about worker organizing within the context of contemporary neoliberal globalization for labor activists and scholars concerned with the labor rights of migrants.


2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sri Lestari Rahayu ◽  
Siti Muslimah ◽  
Sasmini ,

<p align="center"><strong><em>A</em></strong><strong><em>b</em></strong><strong><em>s</em></strong><strong><em>t</em></strong><strong><em>r</em></strong><strong><em>a</em></strong><strong><em>c</em></strong><strong><em>t</em></strong></p><p><em>T</em><em>h</em><em>i</em><em>s research is conducted to get a legal argumentation related to responsibility of Indonesia on protection of its citizen, especially migrant workers. The question will be answered by determining the norms and principles that underlie Indonesia in protecting the human rights of its citizens. The sources of this research are international conventions, customary international law, doctrine, legal instruments in Indonesia and some of publications concerning the state responsibility to protect migrant workers. The legal sources collected by study documentation are analyzed by interpretation and content analysis. The results show that the general legal principles in which become basic of Indonesia associated with its obligation to provide protection of human rights of women migrant workers are based on the principle of nationality/citizenship of Indonesia, the principle of pacta sunt servanda, the principle of exhaustion of local remedies, the shift in meaning of the sovereignty principle and recognition principles theory of natural rights which inherent in every human being. While the norms are contained in the Migration for Employment Convention (Revised), 1949 (No. 97), the Convention on Migrant Workers (Supplementary Provisions), 1975 (No. 143), United Nations Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families 1</em><em>9</em><em>9</em><em>0</em><em>.</em></p><p><strong><em>Key words: </em></strong><em>human rights, migrant workers, obligations, international law</em></p><p align="center"><strong>A</strong><strong>b</strong><strong>s</strong><strong>t</strong><strong>ra</strong><strong>k</strong></p><p>Penelitian ini dilakukan untuk memperolah gambaran yang lebih mendalam mengenai tanggung jawab Negara Indonesia dalam memberikan perlindungan terhadap hak-hak warga negaranya, khususnya pekerja migran. Penulis mencoba menjawab permasalahan tersebut dari sisi normatif yaitu dengan mendasarkan pada norma-norma dan prinsip-prinsip yang mewajibkan setiap negara termasuk Indone- sia untuk melindungi hak asasi warga negaranya. Bahan penelitian yang digunakan meliputi perjanjian- perjanjian internasional, doktrin, hukum kebiasaan internasional, peraturan perundang-undangan di Indonesia, serta beberapa publikasi yang terkait dengan kewajiban negara atas perlindungan pekerja migran. Bahan hukum yang dikumpulkan melalui studi dokumen selanjutnya dianalisis melalui interpretasi teks dan analisis isi. Hasil pembahasan menunjukkan bahwa prinsip-prinsip hukum umum yang menjadi dasar Indonesia terkait dengan kewajibannya untuk memberikan perlindungan HAM pekerja migran didasarkan pada prinsip nasionalitas, prinsip <em>pacta sunt servanda</em>, prinsip <em>exhaustion of local remedies</em>, pergeresan makna prinsip kedaulatan dan diakuinya prinsip teori hak-hak kodrati yang melekat dalam diri setiap manusia. Sedangkan norma-normanya terdapat dalam Konvensi Migrasi untuk Pekerjaan (Revisi), 1949 (No. 97), Konvensi Pekerja Migran (Ketentuan-Ketentuan Tambahan), 1975 (No. 143), <em>United Nations Convention on The Protection of The Rights of All Migran Workers and Member of Their Families </em>tahun 1990.</p><strong>Kata kunci: </strong>hak asasi manusia (HAM), pekerja migran, kewajiban, hukum internasional


Author(s):  
Martin Ruhs

This chapter examines the implications of the analysis in this book for human rights debates and the rights-based approaches to migration advocated by many international organizations and nongovernmental organizations concerned with protecting and promoting the interests of migrant workers. It highlights the danger of a blind spot in human rights–based approaches to migration, which are often focused on protecting and promoting migrant rights without taking into account the consequences for nation-states' policies for admitting new migrant workers. The trade-off between openness and some specific migrant rights in high-income countries' labor immigration policies means that insisting on equality of rights for migrant workers can come at the price of more restrictive admission policies and, therefore, discourage the further liberalization of international labor migration.


1993 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Rao Penna

The United Nations, being aware of the exploitation of migrant workers particularly illegal immigrants, has adapted the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families 1990. Human rights are grouped in two categories: rights available for all migrant workers including the non-documented (Part III) and rights only for documented workers (Part IV). Many of the rights in Part III are a reaffirmation of existing human rights in other international instruments in the specific context of migrant workers. The ingenuity of the Convention lies in the innovation of a large number of hitherto unknown rights like the right to recourse to consular or diplomatic protection, or the right to transfer funds, the right to information regarding working conditions, the right to equality with nationals in educational, social, and health services, as well as the right to exemptions from import and export duties. This paper examines the scope of some of the important human rights in the Convention. It also evaluates the efficacy of the Convention in safeguarding the migrant workers during armed conflicts such as the 1990 invasion of Kuwait by Iraq.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Phương Trang Nguyễn

<p>The thesis focuses on analysing the Vietnam‟s responsibilities as a worker - sending country (sending country) in protecting the rights of its migrant workers in accordance with international conventions adopted by the United Nations and the International Labour Organisation. The conventions used in the thesis to build up the analytical framework are: C097 - Migration for Employment Convention (Revised), 1949 (No. 97), C143 - Migrant Workers (Supplementary Provisions) Convention, 1975 (No. 143) and International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families.  This thesis evaluates the policies of protecting Vietnamese workers working overseas since 1980. Accordingly, it presents an analysis of Vietnam‟s policies on labour migration by putting Vietnam‟s laws in comparison with international conventions. The thesis indicates that although Vietnam has not ratified relevant international conventions to protect the rights of migrant workers, its national policies, legal system and practices have gradually approached these requirements in accordance with the actual situation of the country. In addition to the achievements of the policies, the thesis also pinpoints constraints in the police and the reasons for those constraints through an analysis of the policy implementation process. Thereby, the thesis suggests several implications to improve relevant policies and practices in Vietnam to better protect the rights of its migrant workers.</p>


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