1. More than Remittances - Resisting the Dominant
Discourse and Policy Prescriptions of the Current
Migration-Development Nexus Debate
Associate Professor NICOLA PIPER
Human Rights Programme

2. Outline
› 1. Global Migration Governance (introduction, background)
› 2. Resistance
› 3. the Global Migrant Rights Movement
› 4. Asian activists
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3. International movement of workers on global
agenda
“Global
Migration Governance” (since early 2000s)
• set-up of Global Commission on International Migration 2003
• reports by World Bank and other IOs
• ILO‘s congress on migrant workers in 2004
• UN High Level Dialogue on International Migration and
Development 2006, 2013
• annual GFMD as outcome
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4. Global Migration Governance
1. Migration-Development Nexus
• remittances one of core issues
• migrants celebrated as ‗agents of development‘
• role of diasporas
2. Migration Management
• control of population movements (exit, entry)
• control of access to employment
›
› mantra of “triple win”
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5. Framework
- “Being able to decide where to live is a key element of
human freedom‖
- (UNDP 2009:1)
- distribution of opportunities throughout the world highly unequal
- 1. a restrictive and highly selective policy framework
• revival and expansion of temporary migration schemes
- 2. limited access to various kinds of resources enabling migrants to move
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6. Migrant Perspective
For migrants themselves, this raises the following issues:
› Question of rights of states vs. rights of people in migration
› Human and labour rights sidelined in global debate
- migration governance but not labour governance
› Social costs of current policy prescriptions/options downplayed
› Responsibilities of COO and COD
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7. Resistance
› global norms increasingly shaped through interaction between
States, international institutions and activists networks (of
peasants, famers, women etc.);
› While global norms and legal enforcement is increasingly influenced
by the everyday resistance of ordinary people, this paper proposes that
international law requires a theory of resistance derived from social
movements
- influenced by scholars such as
Rajagopal, Baxi, Koskenniemi, Stammers, Estevez
- influenced by conceptual thinking by and strategies of migrant rights activists
conceptual tools from literature on social movements and linking those to
human rights, rather than anlaysing the latter exclusively from the perspectives
of either states (as realists/positivists do) or individuals (as liberals/naturalists do)
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8. Resistance
› Resistance is conceptualised in the context of transformative
mobilisation
› ―transformative‖ used to refer to changing institutional practices
› = ―rights” as “struggle concept‖ that requires collective activism
› = collective activism via networks within and across organisations
› = globalisation not only as obstacle but also as a chance
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9. Resistance
Academic perspectives
› Social movement literature – its theories/analytical tools
- grassroots mobilisation at the heart
› Constructivist IR scholarship on transnational advocacy
networks
› IR and development studies scholarship on global
governance and role of non-state actors (to address
democratic deficit)
- labour (and thus role of certain organisations) largely left out
• significance of labour geographers‘ work
concept of ―scale‖
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10. Global Migrant Rights Movement
› Rights-Based Approach
- to recognize human and labour rights of migrant workers
- to correct view of migrant workers as commodities and ‗factors of production‘
- to recognize their political agency
› as counter-discourse to prevailing ‗migration management‘ and ‗migrationdevelopment nexus‘ discourse by migrant rights movement
› Two key demands:
› 1. access and participation
› 2. comprehensive understanding of migrant rights
- covering causes and consequences of migration (COO and COD)
• ‗making migration a choice and not necessity’
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11. What is the “Global Migrant Rights Movement”?
EXAMPLES
1. Peoples‟ Global Action on Migration, Development and Human
Rights
- activist counterpart to state-led Global Forum on Migration and Development
› 2. Global Coalition on Migration
› unions, migrant rights organisations, concerned academics, peasant
movement
3. International Domestic Worker Network (IDWN)
Unions, migrant organisations
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12. Example 1
Example 1: People„s Global Action for Migration, Development and
Human Rights (PGA)
civil society („collective action―) counterpart to state-led GFMD
• this global movement for migrant rights targets the newly emerging global
migration governance structure and its discourse
• it demands the strengthening of the HR dimension of migration governance in
two ways:
1. central role of ILO in migration governance
2. rights-based approach to migration and development
decent work „here“ and „there“
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13. PGA at the GFMD in Geneva 2011
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14. Example 2: Global Coalition of Migration
“About” statement (www.gcmigration.org):
› In the current international political climate where migration has
received intense attention and government focus, global civil society
movements have consistently stated the critical need to have a strong
presence, collective voice, and unified vision to advocate for the best
possible global governance and policy-making around migration.
› As critical stake-holders with a deep history and shared experience in
collaborating on an international level, the Global Coalition on Migration
(GCM) represents a vital space where its members can collectively
chart the best methods, strategies and tools to take action together.
› The GCM members represent regional and international networks of
migrant associations, migrants rights organizations and advocates, trade
unions, faith groups and academia, covering every region around the
world.
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15. Example 2: Global Coalition of Migration
Launched in 2012– members and observers
› Building and Woodworkers International (BWI), Chair of the Council of Global Unions (CGU) Working
Group on Migration — observer
› Espacio Sin Fronteras (ESF)
› Global Migration Policy Associates (GMPA) — observer
› International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC)
› International Network on Migration and Development (INMD)
› International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC)
› La Via Campesina (LVC) — observer
› Migrant Forum in Asia (MFA)
› Migrants Rights International (MRI)
› National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities (NALACC)
› National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR)
› Pan-African Network in Defense of Migrants Rights (PANiDMR)
› Platform for the International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM)
› Transnational Migrant Platform (TMP) — observer
› Women and Global Migration Working Group (WGMWG) — observer
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16. Example 3: IDWN
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17. New Understanding of Migrant Rights
›Integrated rights-based approach
• at its core: freedom of mobility
• = fair distribution of gains from mobility in a global context
• coupled with: rights ‚here‗ and ‚there‗
= rights to work and rights in work
= social rights (portability, transnationally split families)
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18. What does this mean in context of “resistance”?
› 1. Bridging liberal and materialist dimensions
- Ariadna Estevez Lopez‘s (2010) argument for an ―epistemological decolonisation
of liberal ideas of global justice‖ that incorporates the viewpoint of the Global
South (with international migration as the key empirical phenomenon)
› 2. The case of migrant rights supports the argument for a social
movement perspective in a transnational activist context
- ‗migrant‘ rights a new and contested concept (COD: non-citizens, undocumented; COO:
privileged)
• Tanya Basok‘s (2009) argument for migrant rights ―as counter-hegemonic human
rights discourse‖
- bridging individualistic and collective notions of rights
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19. Goal of Resistance
› Democratization of Migration Governance….
- through participation, access, accountability
› …. to ultimately democratize migration itself
- through a rights-based approach to migration
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20. Final
For practitioners
› More attention needs to be paid to ―labour governance”
- institutional capacity building in this area
› Appreciation of significance and composition of civic society
• civil society is more than INGOs
 role of broader labour movement, trade unions and/union aid (union-to-union)
significance of collective organising
capacity building in‘ labour rights‘ field
(Special Issue by Deborah Eade and Alan Leather in Development in Practice from
2004)
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