National Center of Competence in Research – The Migration-Mobility Nexus
Alberto Achermann and Jörg Künzli
From “Traditional” to “New” Migration: Challenges to the International Legal Migration Regime
The Arab spring upheavals and civil war in Syria have transformed trajectories of mobility. In this context, the EU, as well as other global legal frameworks evolved, which in turn impacted on notions of identity and belonging. The 2016 New York Declaration for Migrants and Refugees increases the level of international commitment in the fields of protection, recognition, and cooperation. Yet, the questions of how the EU and Switzerland will construe admission, visa, citizenship and nationality laws and of how these levels of governance will interact remain open.
With the Global Compacts for Migration and Refugees a new legal framework is arising which is strengthening the Geneva Refugee Convention by complementing humanitarian assistance and refugee protection with livelihood creation – through access to education and employment. The locally and regionally fragmented regulatory frameworks for migrants shall be streamlined into a global undertaking.
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While multi-level governance improves policy coherence, the risk of connecting unrelated policy goals might jeopardize migrants’ rights.
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Recognition of citizenship as an individual right of membership on the basis of belonging instead of being the prerogative of sovereignty allows accommodating for contemporary migrant biographies.
