ABSTRACT
On 19 September 2016, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly adopted the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants. The Declaration recognized that the world is witnessing an ‘unprecedented level of human mobility’, and that ‘people move in search of new economic opportunities and horizons. ..to escape armed conflict, poverty, food insecurity, persecution, terrorism, or human rights violations… [and] in response to the adverse effects of climate change or other environmental factors’. Perhaps most significantly, the Declaration recognized that ‘many move for a combination of these reasons’. The Declaration launched a process of thematic sessions, regional consultations, and stakeholder consultations culminating in a December 2018 intergovernmental conference, in Marrakesh, Morocco, where a Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) was adopted by 164 states. On 19 December 2018, the UN General Assembly endorsed the GCM by a vote of 152 to 5 (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Israel, Poland, and the USA voted against the Compact).
