The Human Rights of Non-citizens 7 The United Nations has recognized this crisis of global governance regarding international migration and systematic violations of non-citizens’ rights taking place around the world. In September 2016, the United Nations initiated a summit to convene world leaders and representatives of UN and nongovernmental organizations to make international migration, and particularly the situation of refugees, an international priority. The New York Declaration created a framework for future deliberations and, by late 2018, many UN member states had developed and agreed to a Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) and a Global Compact on Refugees (GCR).27 Although these compacts have been heralded as important steps in international law, it remains to be seen how they will guide international migration policy and practice at the national and supranational levels. The GCM highlights that human rights norms and processes are fundamental to the compact: The Global Compact is based on international human rights law and upholds the principles of non-regression and non-discrimination. By implementing the Global Compact, we ensure effective respect for and protection and fulfilment of the human rights of all migrants, regardless of their migration status, across all stages of the migration cycle. We also reaffirm the commitment to eliminate all forms of discrimination, including racism, xenophobia, and intolerance, against migrants and their families.28 The UN General Assembly passed a resolution affirming the Global Compact on Refugees on December 17, 2018.29 The preamble highlights that the agreement demonstrates states’ and other stakeholders’ “political will and the ambition to operationalize the principle of burden- and responsibility-sharing” and to “mobilize the international community as a whole.”30 Peter Nyers charges that these compacts reflect a form of “humanitarian hubris” by assuming the need to “manage migration and asylum in the first place” and that “governments and international agencies are capable of managing global movements in a ‘safe, orderly, and regular’ manner.”31 Nyers points to another source of hubris as “the precept that protecting the interests of host states – states of refuge – should be a leading objective of the global compacts.”32 This latter critique is a central concern running through the chapters United Nations, “Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, A/RES/73/195,” December 19, 2018, www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/73/195; “ILO and IOM Sign Agreement to Strengthen Collaboration on Migration Governance,” October 23, 2020, www.iom.int/news/ilo-and-iom-sign-agreement-strengthen-collaboration-migrationgovernance. 28 United Nations, “Global Compact.” 29 Ibid. 30 Ibid., p. iii. 31 Nyers, “Humanitarian Hubris,” p. 172. 32 Ibid. 27 https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108914994 Published online by Cambridge University Press

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