Time for a new approach

Tomorrow and the day after, the United Nations will hold a high-level dialogue on international migration and development. The holding of this General Assembly meeting confirms that international migration has risen to the top of the global policy agenda and clearly signals that it has become a key issue in the globalisation process.

The dialogue, like the Euro-African Ministerial Conference held in Rabat, Morocco, on July 10 and 11, will focus on the relation between migration and development. There is a near consensus now that differences in development, along with those in democracy and demography (the 3Ds), are the principal forces driving international migration. Improving economic and social conditions in the home countries of migrants is one of the major challenges ahead.

The good news is that international migration, in some of its effects and some of its forms, may itself contribute to development. In some of its effects, remittances by migrants into developing countries have jumped spectacularly in recent years. They almost triple the official development assistance to low-income countries and come second as a source of external funding behind foreign direct investment.

In some of its forms, temporary migration programmes are increasingly recognised as beneficial to both receiving countries and countries of origin. Returning migrants bring to their home country the benefits of the knowledge, resources and contacts they have acquired abroad. For skilled labour, "brain drain" - particularly detrimental to health care and education in poor countries - may give way to "brain circulation".

The General Assembly meeting this week has a chance to give a new impetus to the creation of a global framework to deal effectively with some aspects of international migration. Reaching agreement on "best practices" is certainly needed, but in order to work they need to be supported by a permanent cooperative framework. This framework should focus on specific aspects of migration, such as those just mentioned, because the issue as a whole is of such scale and complexity that progress can only be made incrementally.

Moreover, any global governance framework should be responsive to concerns about loss of sovereign control and rising political sensitivities. These are particularly strong in the industrialised part of the world, and they tend to favour unilateral policies rather than global cooperation - notwithstanding the inherently global nature of the issue.

The difficulty with some of the models currently on the table for global governance is that they are viewed as not specific enough or as overly ambitious. The 1990 UN Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, for example, has been criticised, especially by industrialised countries, for not allowing differentiation between regular and irregular migrants, nor between permanent and temporary migrants. The result: it has not yet been ratified by a single industrialised nation.

At the same time, the call for a fundamental overhaul of the current international institutions dealing with migration (UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, International Migration Organisation, International Labour Organisation) has met with little enthusiasm. Movement on this front is, therefore, not likely either.

There is, however, an alternative approach to either a catalogue of migrants' rights, largely left for their implementation to individual states - the 1990 UN Convention - or to plans to reinforce or merge the functions of international organisations. This approach has proven its effectiveness in migration-related matters such as cross-border family relations.

Regulating parental child abduction and inter-country adoption of children offer examples. For each of these issues, successful multilateral global instruments are now in place (the Hague Conventions on Child Abduction and on Inter-country Adoption), which have created permanent forms of direct cooperation between the countries concerned, with well-defined obligations set out for each side.

Primary responsibility for the cooperation lies with a central government body in each country. Within each country this body, with the involvement of various stakeholders, ensures coherence of internal policies.

The Adoption Convention also ties the operation of private adoption intermediaries to a licensing system. Promotion of coordination at the national level is thus institutionally linked with sustained direct international cooperation between countries, aimed at achieving practical results. The Abduction and Adoption Conventions have been widely ratified.

Regular meetings of these central authorities and other stakeholders at the Hague Peace Palace allow for the exchange of experiences, the building of mutual trust and the development of good practices. Emphasis lies on prevention through cooperation, using techniques of civil and administrative law to reduce the need for repression through criminal prosecution afterwards.

Bureaucratic excrescences are kept under constant mutual scrutiny. In this way, the multilateral machinery for cross-border cooperation is progressively reviewed, and made even more efficient - at remarkably low cost. The same approach is being followed in the current Hague negotiations on a new global instrument, to be completed in 2007, to improve the cross-border recovery of child support and other forms of family maintenance.

It is worth examining whether this "Hague" model could work for some aspects of international migration, those where cross-border cooperation is critical. Take, for example, temporary labour migration. It would seem obvious that this should always be based on close cooperation between countries of origin and of destination, with clearly-defined obligations on each side, and channels for communication and cooperation to ensure the success of the programme - from recruitment, via placement and admission, to safeguarding the orderly return of the migrant.

Yet, agreements on temporary labour migration are relatively rare, which inevitably detracts from the programme's efficiency. This should be an incentive to try and negotiate, with the participation of all concerned, a global framework to promote efficient temporary migration schemes. Of course, such a framework should only define basic responsibilities and provide for the essential cooperative machinery. The details could be left to bilateral arrangements (as is the case for "Hague" instruments).

Outside temporary labour migration programmes, there may well be other instances where a "Hague" approach could bring benefits, for example where there is basic agreement between the countries involved about the return of migrants with an irregular status. Trafficking and smuggling of migrants are another example: there is a clear need for the development of an agreed and effective system of licensing and regulating the activities of agents involved in the recruiting of foreign workers. Finally, the effectiveness of remittances may be improved if, through an international cooperation framework, clandestine money networks are reduced, access to formal banking channels is facilitated and regular meetings to review the framework help to promote better procedures and new initiatives.

Is it naïve to think that what has been achievable in some migration-related matters can be done for some aspects of international migration itself? We won't know until we have tried!

Mr Van Loon is secretary-general of The Hague Conference on Private International Law, the world organisation for cross-border cooperation in civil and commercial matters.