‘Legal Identity for All’ and Statelessness mosaic’ in relation to civil status documents, 59 and an EU regulation came into force in 2019 that aims to reduce costs and shorten lengthy procedures for mutual recognition of a range of public documents. 60 But all these efforts are limited in their ambition and scope: not even the EU regulation aims to harmonise the great variety of policy rules among member states regarding verification of facts stated in foreign civil status documents. 61 Agreements on the regulation of private international law thus seem to have the potential to resolve these issues, to ‘focus the analysis on the migrant as an individual rather than on the state’s interests’ when it comes to global migration governance. 62 But progress so far is not encouraging. Public international law, moreover, provides no right to the consular assistance that is needed by a person navigating these cross-border registration labyrinths. It protects the right of a state to assist its nationals (should it so wish), and the rights of migrants to be informed of the availability of the assistance that does exist, but does not establish an obligation for states to provide assistance. 63 There is only a somewhat limp commitment in the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration of 2018, to ‘ensure adequate, timely, reliable and accessible consular documentation to our nationals residing in other countries, including identity and travel documents’. 64 The language was watered down from the initial draft in order to reduce the focus on rights and increase the focus on control. 65 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 Mariolina Eliantonio, Silvia Brunello and Hanno von Freyhold, Life in Cross-Border Situations in the EU: A Comparative Study on Civil Status (Study, European Parliament Committee on Legal Affairs February 2013) ch 2.1 <http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/etudes/join/2013/474395/IPOLJURI_ET(2013)474395_EN.pdf>. See also Birgit Feldtmann et al, Facilitating Life Events (Final Report, European Commission, DG JLS – Directorate-General for Justice, Freedom and Security October 2008) <http://www.freyvial.de/Publications/Civil_Status_in_Europe_Fullreport.pdf> and the work of the European Association of Civil Registrars <https://evs-eu.org/en/explanations/>. Regulation (EU) 2016/1191 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 July 2016 on Promoting the Free Movement of Citizens by Simplifying the Requirements for Presenting Certain Public Documents in the European Union and Amending Regulation (EU) No 1024/2012 [2016] OJ L 200/1. See also Alenka Prvinšek Persoglio, ‘State Obligation to Establish Legal Identity in Comparative Perspective’, London School of Economics Middle East Centre (Blog Post, 1 May 2019) <https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2019/05/01/stateobligation-to-establish-legal-identity-in-comparative-perspective/>. Gerard-René de Groot and David de Groot, ‘Recognition of Civil Status (Certificates), with Special Attention to Secondary Recognition of Documents Already Recognized in Another Member State’ in André Janssen and Hans Schulte-Nölke (eds), Researches in European Private Law and Beyond — Contributions in Honour of Reiner Schulze’s Seventieth Birthday (Nomos 2020) 283. Sabine Corneloup, ‘Can Private International Law Contribute to Global Migration Governance?’ in Horatia Muir Watt and Diego P Fernández Arroyo (eds), Private International Law and Global Governance (Oxford University Press 2014) 301, 302. Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, opened for signature 24 April 1963, 596 UNTS 261 (entered into force 19 March 1967) art 5; International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families, opened for signature 18 December 1990, 2220 UNTS 3 (entered into force 1 July 2003), arts 7, 65(2); The Right to Information on Consular Assistance in the Framework of the Guarantees of the Due Process of Law (Advisory Opinion) (Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Series A No 16, 1 October 1999). Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, GA Res 73/195, UN GOAR, 73rd sess, Agenda Items 14 and 119, UN Doc A/RES/73/195 (11 January 2019, adopted 19 December 2018) annex 12 [20(c)]. Amal de Chickera, ‘GCM Commentary: Objective 4: Ensure That All Migrants Have Proof of Legal Identity and Adequate Documentation’, Refugee Law Initiative Blog (Blog Post, 8 November 2018) <https://rli.blogs.sas.ac.uk/2018/11/08/gcm-commentary-objective-4/>. 259