Daily Times

The UN has adopted the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM). This is a landmark move given that the pact represents the first-ever inter-governmentally negotiated agreement aimed at curbing the suffering and chaos that accompanies global migration.

It is the result of the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants; adopted by the UN General Assembly back in September 2016. Yet the entire process to reach where the world community stands today has not been without controversy. The GCM was approved over the summer by all 193 members — with the exception of the US. Then, this week, more than a handful of nations, including several EU members, were either a no-show at the migration conference in Marrakesh or else refused to sign off on the pact. One explanation for this might be that while the accord is non-binding in nature this will not prevent it from, over time, becoming part of customary international law. Therefore, by protesting the GCM from the offset certain countries are likely trying to circumvent this under the persistent objector framework.

That being said, it is hard to identify areas of concern regarding consensus on the protection and treatment of migrants and refugees. Especially considering that UN figures indicate the latter accounting for some 258 million in 2017 alone; a 50 percent increase since 2000 that represents some 3.4 percent of the population. The point to stress here is that those who leave their home countries do so to escape man-made disasters such as: economic inequality; violence and conflict; as well as climate change. Thus instead of stubbornly refusing to play ball when it comes to the GCM, the US should be taking the lead in making it mandatory, say, for the UN Security Council to draw up provisions to accommodate refugees before greenlighting the use of military force under the NATO banner or otherwise.

For as things currently stand, consideration of civilian populations is largely secondary — typically as a means of winning the propaganda war in regime change missions. Britain, for its part, had been supplying non-lethal military aid to Syrian rebels from as early as 2012 but did not admit any refugees into the country until 2015; the year London officially joined the air campaign against President Bashar al-Assad. And even then, the Cameron government pledged to give shelter to just 20,000 over a five-year period.

That countries such as Italy, Holland, Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Poland did not back the GCM raises important questions as to the absence of a common EU migration policy. All of which is extremely worrisome. Not least because Fortress Europe has become synonymous with the image of a hostile empire in the making. Of course, this was supposed to change after the picture of the lifeless body of three-year old Alan Kurd was found washed up on a Turkish beach. He and his family had been trying to make the treacherous journey from Syria to Europe to flee NATO bullets and bombs.

What major powers like the US need to recognise is that they do not have a monopoly on peace and security for their citizens. For the world belongs to one and all. And it remains the job of peace-loving nations to ensure that all lives matter.  *

Published in Daily Times, December 11^th 2018.