Add us as your preferred source on Google to see more of our content in Search.
Add to Preferred SourcesThe adoption by more than 160 governments of the first-ever global migration pact is a triumph of multilateralism and highlights the importance of dispelling “myths” and fear-mongering over the issue, said the UN’s senior migration official bringing the key two-day Marrakech conference to a close.
The Member States who took part in the intergovernmental conference in Morocco “committed to a global migration framework based on facts not myths,” said Louise Arbour, UN Special Representative for International Migration, speaking at a closing press conference, adding that the framework would protect their national interests and enable better cooperation.
She said the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration “is designed to enhance safety and order in migration management, and reduce recourse to dangerous, chaotic migratory routes”, revealing that “it seeks to maximize all the benefits of human mobility and mitigate its challenges.”
A central promise of the non-binding pact is that it “reinforces, unambiguously, the fundamental principle that migrants everywhere should be treated with dignity and fairness,” added Ms. Arbour.
She called on the governments who did not join to reconsider their position.
A former top Canadian judge, who also served as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms. Arbour, told sceptical nations who had decided not to be in Marrakech that “under international human rights law citizens of a country have the right to enter, stay and leave their country but they don’t have a right to go anywhere else unless they seek asylum, or are authorized by another country to enter its territory.”
Implementation must come next
The Moroccan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Nasser Bourita, stressed the importance his country attaches to multilateralism in addressing migration and other pressing international issues.
He said adoption of the pact represents only the first step, which must be followed now by the implementation, urging everyone to maintain momentum. Mr. Nasser hailed the Secretary-General’s initiative to launch the UN Network on Migration, describing it as the cornerstone to the Compact.
Original source: UN News
Published on 11 December 2018