NARRATIVE REPORT 2009 - The ICHRP

International Council on Human Rights Policy - Narrative Report 2009
Research director: Vijay Kumar Nagaraj.
Design: Quarter 3, 2008.
Start: Quarter 4, 2008.
Draft Report: February 2010.
Consultation: March 2010.
Publication: April-May 2010.
Working title:
Macro Economic Policy and Human Rights. In English.
In English. Summary in English, French and Spanish.
Conference team: Planning: Vijay Nagaraj, Scott jerbi, Robert Archer. Logistics: Tom Sanderson
and Steve Ako Tango (interns at ICHRP), ICHRP staff. Rapporteurs: Alison
Graham, Adil Khan, Magdalena Piskunovic, Kasia Snyder.
Human Smuggl
muggling
ing, , migration and human rights (122)
Due for publication in April 2010
This project analyses policies on irregular migration, giving specific attention to human smuggling. It
provides a critique of current policies, discusses the legal coherence of recent legal approaches to
migration, including the Palermo Protocols (see below), and proposes elements of a policy approach
that would provide better protection for migrants. In a lengthy annexe, the report outlines the legal
rights of migrants as set out in international human rights and other relevant bodies of law.
In 2005 the Council commissioned a legal analysis that explored the principles underlying
international policies on migration, including smuggling. In parallel, country reports on Albania, Italy,
Malaysia, Mexico and the United Kingdom were prepared that described the legal environment in those
countries and the different experiences of smuggled (as well as trafficked and other undocumented)
migrants. Further legal work commissioned in 2006 analysed human rights references in the UN
Convention to Combat Transnational Organized Crime, and its Protocols on Trafficking and Smuggling
(the Palermo protocols), which came into force in 2000-2001. The legal arguments and the country
papers were discussed in July 2005 at a review meeting attended by the lead and country researchers,
the project’s advisers, and other experts. Subsequently, a first draft of a report was prepared by the
original lead writer, Philip Rudge. It was substantially reworked and developed by Monette Zard, the
project’s Research Director; the legal annexe was further developed during 2007-08 by Cecilia
Jimenez, an independent consultant.
In September 2008, Pia Oberoi agreed to write a final chapter with analytical conclusions and to
prepare the text for review and publication. She submitted an edited text with a final analytical chapter
of recommendations in December 2008. After further work and review by the project’s advisers, it
went out for consultation in the third Quarter of 2009, before being finalised for publication at the end
of the year and in January 2010. The report will be published in April 2010, accompanied by a
Summary in French, Spanish and English which will be published simultaneously.
As part of the consultation, Pia Oberoi and the Council’s Executive Director presented and discussed
the project with a group of experts and diplomats at a lunch convened by the Quaker UN Office in
Geneva (DATE). Pia Oberoi also raised issues relevant to the project’s argument at an intergovernmental
conference on migration that she attended in Dakar, Senegal, in December 2009. ICHRP
attended two meetings convened by the Mexican mission in Geneva to discuss preparations for the
next Global Forum on Migration and Development that will be held in Mexico in November 2010. The
draft was sent out for comment to a range of experts and organisations that are active on the issue.
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