Australian negotiators repeatedly warned officials who drew up a UN pact on migration they were adopting requirements that threatened national sovereignty. They also warned that the Global Compact on Migration contained ill-considered policies, would endanger lives and risked giving legitimacy to “unsafe, disorderly and irregular migration”. After examining the final draft of the pact last month in New York, Australia’s negotiators read a statement of concern to their international counterparts and urged them to reconsider. The negotiating team, mainly consisting of Foreign Affairs and Home Affairs officials, also provided written copies of their statement to delegates at that session and sent a copy to Canberra. Their concerns about sovereignty were accepted yesterday by the government, which joined the US and Hungary in withdrawing from the pact. The statement read out by the Australian delegation in New York reveals they had continually warned against including commitments in the compact that “failed to make clear distinctions between regular and irregular migrants and between refugees and migrants”.
“We are disappointed the final draft undermines the principle that migration should be lawful,” the statement says. “The current draft does not reflect the principles of lawful and managed migration on which our country has been built. It falls short of what a country like Australia — where one in four people was born overseas — considers necessary.” The adverse assessment of the compact came to light as Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton yesterday dropped earlier qualifications about Australia signing the document, instead ruling it out.
When asked by radio 2GB’s Ray Hadley if the government intended to sign the compact, Mr Dutton said: “No, and the Prime Minister’s been very clear on that as well. We’re not going to sign a document that surrenders our sovereignty. We’re not going to sign a document that undoes the work of Operation Sovereign Borders. We’re serious about making sure we keep our borders secure. We’re not going to allow the UN or anybody else to disrupt the hard work that’s taken place and the threat for us hasn’t gone away. The boats are still out there.”
The US withdrew from the compact in December and Hungrary withdrew last month, saying the final version of the pact was “in conflict with common sense and also with the intent to restore European security”. The move towards the Global Compact began in 2016 with a UN declaration on migration containing provisions that the US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, described in December as inconsistent with US migration policy.
Eric Schwartz, the president of Refugees International, and a former Clinton administration official, said it was “baffling and disturbing” that Mr Dutton had “chosen to parrot the Trump administration’s fearmongering”. The statement by Australia’s negotiating team shows it had warned against including “prescriptive commitments that pose real risks to the sovereign right of states to manage and determine border policies”. “States must maintain the sovereign prerogative to determine migration and border policies in response to their own unique settings,” they said. Assurances that the pact was not legally binding “belies the moral and political commitment it represents”, they said. The final version of the pact, dated July 11, subjects the migration policies of signatories to a series of requirements and encourages them to “develop, as soon as practicable, ambitious responses for the implementation of the global compact”. Biennial reports to the UN General Assembly will compare the migration policies of signatory nations with the requirements set down in the compact.
For Australia, ratification would have confronted the nation with the prospect of adverse outcomes in reports to the General Assembly unless major changes were made to the migration system. Under the pact’s objective 13, governments are required to review and revise migration legislation and give priority to non-custodial alternatives to detention that are in line with international law. Immigration detention could not be promoted as a deterrent and could be used only as a last resort. Objective 17 requires governments to “shape perceptions of migration” by “sensitising and educating” journalists and withholding public funding and material support from publications that “promote intolerance” of migrants. It says this should be done “in full respect for the freedom of the media”. The compact proposes joint efforts to end the impunity of people-smuggling networks, but also that signatories “build on existing practices to facilitate access for migrants in an irregular status to an individual assessment that may lead to regular status”. Under objective 12, governments would need to subject judges to “specialised human rights and trauma-informed trainings”, along with police, border officials and consular staff.
Australia’s negotiators wrote last month that they had continually sought to relay the lessons from the nation’s experience — principally that only lawful and managed migration pathways could protect the interests of migrants and states. The Australians urged other delegates at last month’s talks to “deliver a compact that champions proven and effective responses to irregular migration, promotes managed migration that reinforces the rights and responsibilities of states and migrants alike, and reaffirms the social and economic benefits of regular migration”.
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BREAKING. US Withdraws From Obama Negotiated UN Agreement On Mass Migration - redstate.com | December 2, 2017
In 2016, Governments of the world agreed to work together to develop two Global Compacts – one on refugees, one on migration – with an ambitious goal to be finalized by September 2018.
U.S. Quits Migration Pact, Saying It Infringes on Sovereignty - nytimes.com | Dec. 3, 2017
The Trump administration has quit participating in talks on a proposed United Nations agreement ... describing it as a subversion of American sovereignty. Trump administration officials said the decision was not an American repudiation of cooperation with other countries but a rightful defense of the government’s power to determine who can enter the United States.
The United States ha[d] been part of the talks since they began in April, the outcome of a political declaration in New York by all 193 members of the United Nations last year [2016] in favor of protecting the rights of migrants and refugees by assuring their safe resettlement and access to employment and education.
[Most] U.N. countries agree on pact to manage mass global migration - reuters.com | JULY 13, 2018
[Officializing] set for December in Morocco.
Hungary Quits UN Migration Pact, Calls it a ‘Threat to the World’ - legalinsurrection.com | July 20, 2018
Hungary becomes the first European country to align itself with the United States on the issue.