What it is
The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration is a non-binding intergovernmental agreement adopted in 2018. It provides a cooperative framework for migration governance across objectives including data, regular pathways, decent work, services, identity, border governance, return, reintegration, and international cooperation.
Governance function
The compact organises migration as a whole-of-government and whole-of-society governance issue. It creates a policy vocabulary for cooperation while preserving state sovereignty over admission, status, and national implementation.
Who is included
Migrants in international migration contexts, including migrant workers, people in vulnerable situations, families, and communities affected by migration.
Who is left out
Refugees remain governed by separate refugee protection frameworks. IDPs and people displaced internally by conflict, disasters, development projects, or climate stress are not the compact's primary population unless migration pathways or cross-border mobility are implicated.
Where continuity breaks
Continuity breaks when migrants move between regular and irregular status, when service access depends on documentation, when labour protections do not follow across borders, or when return and reintegration are not connected to social protection and local development systems.
Why it matters
The compact is important for displacement governance because many displaced people are administratively treated as migrants when they move outside refugee or IDP categories. The political economy archetype is managed mobility with rights language: cooperation expands, but domestic status control remains central.
Governance coding table
| Political economy archetype | Managed mobility with rights language |
|---|---|
| Responsibility | States carry primary implementation responsibility. UN Network on Migration, IOM, OHCHR, ILO, UNHCR where relevant, civil society, employers, local governments, and diaspora actors support implementation. |
| Eligibility | Eligibility depends on migrant status, national law, documentation, sectoral rules, and programme criteria rather than a single global entitlement. |
| Financing | The compact does not create a direct financing entitlement. Implementation depends on national budgets, development cooperation, diaspora and remittance systems, labour market institutions, and international partnerships. |
| Data systems | The compact emphasizes better migration data, identity documentation, evidence-based policymaking, and international data cooperation. It does not create a single registry. |
| Delivery system | Delivery occurs through national migration systems, consular services, labour institutions, local governments, education and health systems, border authorities, and service providers. |
| Portability | Portability depends on recognition of identity documents, qualifications, social security arrangements, remittance channels, labour agreements, and return/reintegration systems. |
| Accountability | Accountability is voluntary and review-based, including national implementation, regional review, the International Migration Review Forum, and stakeholder reporting. |
| Time horizon | Long-term cooperative framework for international migration governance and implementation of the 23 objectives. |
Sources
Official sources
- OHCHR page on the Global Compact for Migration
- IOM Global Compact for Migration page
- Global Compact for Migration final draft PDF
Secondary sources
No sources listed yet.