Avoiding the Quicksand of the Global Compact on Refugees
A nesting doll of international commitments
By Nayla Rush on December 4, 2018
The United States recently was the sole "no" vote on a United Nations resolution that included the "Global Compact on Refugees". This follows last year's withdrawal from the UN's "Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration", a separate but related effort.
The Trump administration was right not to endorse the UN refugee compact; it is, in the words of a U.S. official, "inconsistent with U.S. immigration policy" and "simply not compatible with U.S. sovereignty." But the formal adoption of the refugee compact is not scheduled to take place until December 17 in Geneva. So there is still the danger that the administration might be persuaded to change its mind in response to tweaks to the text by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). But no amount of tweaking can render this agreement a positive one for the United States.
A key problem with both the refugee and migration compacts is the misleading nature of their so-called non-legally-binding character. The fact is, these UN agreements create a new model for international lawmaking, one that will shape state behavior and create new norms that will eventually form the basis for a self-enforcing international human rights law.
https://www.cis.org/Report/Avoiding-Quicksand-Global-Compact-Refugees
