Model International Mobility Convention

While people are as mobile as they ever were in our globalized world, the movement of people across borders lacks global regulation. This leaves many refugees in protracted displacement and many migrants unprotected in irregular and dire situations. Meanwhile, some states have become concerned that their borders have become irrelevant. International mobility—the movement of individuals across borders for any length of time as visitors, students, tourists, labor migrants, entrepreneurs, long-term residents, asylum seekers, or refugees—has no common definition or legal framework. To address this key gap in international law, and the growing gaps in protection and responsibility that are leaving people vulnerable, the "Model International Mobility Convention" proposes a framework for mobility with the goals of reaffirming the existing rights afforded to mobile people (and the corresponding rights and responsibilities of states) as well as expanding those basic rights where warranted. In 213 articles divided over eight chapters, the Convention establishes both the minimum rights afforded to all people who cross state borders as visitors, and the special rights afforded to tourists, students, migrant workers, investors and residents, forced migrants, refugees, migrant victims of trafficking and migrants caught in countries in crisis. Some of these categories are covered by existing international legal regimes. However, in this Convention these groups are for the first time brought together under a single framework. An essential feature of the Convention is that it is cumulative. This means, for the most part, that the chapters build on and add rights to the set of rights afforded to categories of migrants covered by earlier chapters. The Convention contains not only provisions that afford rights to migrants and, to a lesser extent, States (such as the right to decide who can enter and remain in their territory). It also articulates the responsibilities of migrants vis-à-vis States and the rights and responsibilities of different institutions that do not directly respond to a right held by migrants

¿A quién compete y quién dirige el fortalecimiento de las capacidades?

El desarrollo de la capacidades depende del contexto y suele estar sujeto a juegos políticos entre el Norte y el Sur. A menudo, esta característica se hace evidente en los Procesos Consultivos Regionales, foros donde Estados, organizaciones internacionales y ONG intercambian información de manera informal sobre cuestiones de interés común relacionadas con las migraciones

“Controlling Borders: The Logics and Politics of a European Immigration Regime”

It is hardly surprising that the subject of immigration within the context of the European Union’s expanding public policy agenda has attracted the attention of a growing number of scholars. Within their burgeoning scholarship a central question is often explicitly or implicitly posed: Why are West European states reluctant to forge and implement a common and comprehensive immigration policy regime? Or to put the issue into sharper focus: in light of their transparent and intractable failure to control effectively their respective national borders, why don’t West European states do more to harmonize or communitarize their immigration policies? The intellectual starting point of this paper is that these questions, while pertinent, neglect the most obvious puzzle that is raised by the immigration-related policy initiatives that have been forged at the intergovernmental and supranational levels since the mid 1980s. Indeed, they neglect a very important puzzle that necessarily stands these questions on their respective heads. Thus, the important question guiding this paper is not why West European states have hesitated to harmonize their immigration policies, but rather, why they have chosen to cooperate in this policy area. From both a theoretical and analytical vantage point, the core issue is why they cooperate at all