Model International Mobility Convention
Creators: name: Acosta, Diego
name: Aleinikoff, T. Alexander
name: Banerjee, Kiran Meisan
name: Barkan, Elazar
name: Bertrand, Pierre
name: Bhagwati, Jagdish N.
name: Blocher, Joseph
name: Borgnäs, Emma
name: Bouwen, Frans
name: Cliffe, Sarah
name: Cope, Kevin L.
name: Crépeau, François
name: Doyle, Michael W.
name: Ergas, Yasmine
name: FitzGerald, David Scott
name: Fouinat, François
name: Gest, Justin
name: Ghosh, Bimal
name: Goodwin-Gill, Guy S.
name: Hansen, Randall
name: Karlsson, Mats
name: Kerwin, Donald
name: Koser, Khalid
name: Koslowski, Rey
name: Kysel, Ian Matthew
name: MacDermott, Justin
name: Martin, Susan F.
name: Miller, Sarah A. D.
name: Mukherjee, Elora
name: Nair, Parvati
name: Nam, Steven S.
name: Naujoks, Daniel M.
name: Ocampo, Jose A.
name: Powers, Margaret M.
name: Queiroz, Benedita Menezes
name: Rajan, S. Irudaya
name: Rosengaertner, Sarah
name: Santos, Bianca Z.
name: Sassen, Saskia
name: Spiro, Peter J.
name: Thouez, Colleen
name: Trachtman, Joel P.
Publisher: name: Columbia University
Year: 2017
Subjects: International law
Immigrants--Civil rights
Refugees--Civil rights
Emigration and immigration
Migration, Internal

description: While people are as mobile as they ever were in our globalized world, the movement of people across borders lacks global regulation. This leaves many refugees in protracted displacement and many migrants unprotected in irregular and dire situations. Meanwhile, some states have become concerned that their borders have become irrelevant. International mobility—the movement of individuals across borders for any length of time as visitors, students, tourists, labor migrants, entrepreneurs, long-term residents, asylum seekers, or refugees—has no common definition or legal framework. To address this key gap in international law, and the growing gaps in protection and responsibility that are leaving people vulnerable, the "Model International Mobility Convention" proposes a framework for mobility with the goals of reaffirming the existing rights afforded to mobile people (and the corresponding rights and responsibilities of states) as well as expanding those basic rights where warranted. In 213 articles divided over eight chapters, the Convention establishes both the minimum rights afforded to all people who cross state borders as visitors, and the special rights afforded to tourists, students, migrant workers, investors and residents, forced migrants, refugees, migrant victims of trafficking and migrants caught in countries in crisis. Some of these categories are covered by existing international legal regimes. However, in this Convention these groups are for the first time brought together under a single framework. An essential feature of the Convention is that it is cumulative. This means, for the most part, that the chapters build on and add rights to the set of rights afforded to categories of migrants covered by earlier chapters. The Convention contains not only provisions that afford rights to migrants and, to a lesser extent, States (such as the right to decide who can enter and remain in their territory). It also articulates the responsibilities of migrants vis-à-vis States and the rights and responsibilities of different institutions that do not directly respond to a right held by migrants.