Reimagining Global Migration Governance: From Insufficient Ideas to South-South Solutions

Abstract

The disarray produced by the "global migration crisis" has resulted in a number of ongoing and proposed reforms of global migration governance, defined as the international law and institutions concerned with all migration. Yet these reforms or proposals appear insufficient or ineffectual-especially to the extent that they often ignore political realities. Fulfilling the promise of global migration governance requires an architecture that instead materially addresses political difficulties. This Article reviews problems with the current and proposed models of global migration governance and proposes to ground reform in consideration of those realities, using a successful model that promoted and protected European emigration in the Twentieth Century. Today, a similar system could help achieve ambitions within the Global South to promote South-South migration among disadvantaged States. Such a model could shift the material incentives (and hence, politics) holding back openness toward migrants, help fulfill migrants' rights or needs, and promote the fair distribution of migrants toward existing migrant destinations. It could also redress the historical injustices of earlier migration governance systems that advantaged Europeans.