The UN Convention on Migrant Workers' Rights is the most comprehensive international treaty in the field of migration and human rights. Adopted in 1990 and entered into force in 2003, it sets a standard in terms of access to human rights for migrants. However, it suffers from a marked indifference: only forty states have ratified it and no major immigration country has done so. This highlights how migrants remain forgotten in terms of access to rights. Even though their labour is essential in the world economy, the non-economic aspect of migration - and especially migrants' rights - remain a neglected dimension of globalisation. This volume provides in-depth information on the Convention and on the reasons behind states' reluctance towards its ratification. It brings together researchers, international civil servants and NGO members and relies upon an interdisciplinary perspective that includes not only law, but also sociology and political science.
Table of Contents
1. International convention on the protection of the rights of all migrant workers and members of their families Paul de Guchteneire and Antoine Pecoud; 2. Migration and human rights: the uneasy but essential relationship Graziano Battistella; 3. Role of civil society in campaigning for and using the ICRMW Mariette Grange and Marie d'Auchamp; 4. Committee on migrant workers and implementation of the ICRMW Carla Edelenbos; 5. Migrants' rights in UN human rights conventions Isabelle Slinckx; 6. The need for a rights-based approach to migration in the age of globalisation Patrick Taran; 7. Obstacles to, and opportunities for, ratification of the ICRMW in Asia Nicola Piper; 8. Obstacles to ratification of the ICRMW in Canada Victor Piche, Eugenie Pelletier and Dina Epale; 9. Mexico's role in promoting and implementing the ICRMW Gabriela Diaz and Gretchen Kuhner; 10. Migrants' rights after apartheid: South African responses to the ICRMW Vincent Williams, Jonathan Crush and Peggy Nicholson; 11. Recent policy on the ICRMW in the United Kingdom Bernard Ryan; 12. The French political refusal on Europe's behalf Helene Oger; 13. Migration and human rights in Germany Felicitas Hillmann and Amanda Klekowski von Koppenfels; 14. Migration and human rights in Italy - prospects for the ICRMW Kristina Touzenis; 15. The ICRMW and the European Union Euan McDonald and Ryszard Cholewinski; 16. Annexe 1 - International convention on the rights of all migrant workers and members of their families; 17. Annexe 2 - Ratifications of ILO Conventions 97 and 143 and of ICRMW by October 2008.
Author Biography
Ryszard Cholewinski was a reader in Law at the University of Leicester from 1992 to 2005. He now works at the International Organization for Migration. Paul de Guchteneire is Chief of the International Migration and Multicultural Policies Section at UNESCO and director of the International Journal on Multicultural Societies. Antoine Pecoud is Programme Specialist for UNESCO's International Migration and Multicultural Policies Section. He is also a research associate at the Unite de Recherche Migrations et Societe, University of Paris VII, and at Migrations Internationales, Espaces et Societes, University of Poitiers (France).
