End of sovereignty or meaningless agreement?
BREAKING DOWN THE GLOBAL PACT ON MIGRATION
As a two-day United Nations conference wrapped up in Morocco Tuesday, at which 164 member countries adopted a global pact on migration, Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen told reporters in Canada that concerns about the compact are simply “myths” propagated by a political “race to the bottom.”
Hussen insisted the pact will not dictate Canadian immigration policy, but will simply allow countries to work together toward an orderly approach to global migration. He slammed Andrew Scheer for condemning the migration pact, saying the Conservative leader is stoking baseless fears about migrants.
“It’s very, very worrying to see the leader of the official opposition perpetuating misinformation on this non-binding agreement,” he said. “The Conservative Party of Canada seems to be competing in a race to the bottom with (Maxime Bernier’s) People’s Party of Canada to see who can scare Canadians the most.”
Still, concerns about the pact have spread rapidly in Canada, and were at the centre of several protests across the country last weekend. Here, the National Post examines what exactly the pact is, why it became so controversial and whether criticisms of it have merit.
WHERE DID THIS ALL COME FROM?
The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration was born out of a 2016 declaration for refugees and migrants adopted by all 193 UN member states. The declaration was itself a response to unprecedented levels of global migration — the UN estimates there were 258 million international migrants worldwide in 2017.
It paved the way for two global compacts — one on migration and one on refugees — to be adopted in 2018. The goal was to help member countries share responsibility for refugees, and to create a more orderly migration system, and it was largely uncontroversial at the time.
“It was only really recently that some governments decided to use it as a platform … to make a statement about immigration,” said Harald Bauder, a professor in the immigration and settlement studies program at Ryerson University.
The migration pact sets out 23 objectives, including collecting data, fighting human trafficking and eliminating discrimination against migrants.
WHO DOES IT REFER TO?
The migration pact covers all types of migrants, including those that immigrate following regular pathways, and aims to reduce “the incidence and negative impact of irregular migration through international co-operation.”
Refugees are covered by a separate compact on refugees, which the UN General Assembly is also expected to endorse by the end of 2018. But the lines between the two groups are somewhat blurred, as some irregular migrants gain refugee status while others do not.
WHY DID IT BECOME CONTROVERSIAL?
In December 2017, the U.S. became the first country to pull out of the UN migration pact, with the Trump administration arguing it was incompatible with U.S. immigration policy.
That move paved the way for other countries to reject the pact, and the list of countries that have turned against it now includes Australia, Hungary, Austria, Poland and several other central and eastern European states. On Tuesday, Brazil’s incoming right-wing government also announced it will quit the pact in January.
Most countries that oppose the compact argue it will pave the way for ever-increasing flows of migrants, and will erode individual states’ sovereignty over migration.
But supporters say the governments that reject the pact are simply motivated by domestic political gain.
“These are places where xenophobic, right-wing, anti-UN sentiment gets votes,” Craig Damian Smith, associate director of the Global Migration Lab at U of T’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, told the House of Commons immigration committee recently. “It’s not a group of states that we want to align ourselves with, in my opinion.”
WHAT DO CANADIAN CRITICS SAY?
The criticism in Canada largely mirrors the narrative elsewhere. Last week, Scheer came out against the pact, saying it would give “foreign entities” influence over Canada’s immigration system.
“Canadians and Canadians alone should make decisions on who comes into our country and under what circumstances,” Scheer said Tuesday. “Instead of signing international agreements that erode our sovereign right to manage our borders, the prime minister should focus on restoring order at home.”
The Conservatives are also concerned the pact could stifle press freedom in Canada, and have raised questions about what costs it might lead Canada to incur.
Both the Liberals and the NDP have struck back at the Conservatives, accusing them of fear-mongering. But concerns have taken root in Canada. Protests over the weekend in Alberta and Saskatchewan focused mainly on the federal carbon tax and the UN migration pact. In Ottawa, nine people were arrested on Saturday after those protesting the migration pact clashed with counter-protesters.
WILL IT CREATE OPEN BORDERS OR ERODE SOVEREIGNTY?
It’s hard to see how this could happen. The pact explicitly “reaffirms the sovereign right of states to determine their national migration policy,” and seeks to reduce irregular migration.
During a recent House of Commons committee review of the pact, Michele Klein Solomon, director for the migration pact with the International Organization for Migration, repeated three times in her opening remarks that the compact isn’t legally binding.
“There is absolutely no obligation in this agreement to take anyone into a country without the explicit authorization of national authorities,” she said.
IF IT DOESN’T REQUIRE US TO CHANGE ANYTHING, WHAT’S THE POINT?
This is a little harder to pin down. Hussen said the pact will make it easier for countries to collaborate and share best practices. For example, he said, it may help Canada to work with other countries to speed up deportations.
Bauder suggested it could help with international recognition of foreign credentials for economic immigrants. More broadly, he said, it’s simply “an expression of goodwill that we co-operate as nation states.”
EVEN IF IT’S NOT LEGALLY BINDING, COULD IT STILL HAVE AN IMPACT ON CANADIAN LAW?
This was a focus of the Conservatives during the House of Commons committee study. In their final report, which disagreed with the majority recommendation to adopt the pact, they argued “nonbinding agreements like the Global Compact for Migration can become customary international law and inform the interpretation of domestic law. This means Canadian judges will be able cite the compacts in their decisions.”
The Conservatives aren’t alone in making this argument. Anne Peters, director of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Germany, concluded in a recent analysis that the pact is “‘soft law,’ in the grey zone … between law and politics.” Peters suggested the text will “be drawn on by domestic authorities and courts, for the interpretation of national law. … So overall, signing the migration compact will not be irrelevant in legal terms.”
During the committee testimony, Liberal MP Matt DeCourcey, parliamentary secretary to the immigration minister, said the pact will provide “an additional policy lens when planning, developing and evaluating our migration policies and programs.”
Still, it’s unclear what reforms Canada might feel pressured to make. On Tuesday, Hussen said Canada is a global leader and other countries may want to replicate Canada’s policies. “A lot of the best practices that are articulated in the compact, Canada already does them,” he said.
WILL IT STIFLE PRESS FREEDOM?
The pact includes a commitment to “promote independent, objective and quality reporting of media outlets,” including by “stopping allocation of public funding or material support to media outlets that systematically promote intolerance, xenophobia, racism and other forms of discrimination towards migrants.” The passage has raised concerns that the pact could limit the freedom of the media to criticize migration policy.
Hussen insisted the pact will do nothing to hamper press freedom in Canada. “This document … simply reinforces the importance of media to public discourse,” he said.
THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO OBLIGATION ... TO TAKE ANYONE INTO A COUNTRY WITHOUT THE EXPLICIT AUTHORIZATION OF NATIONAL AUTHORITIES.