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2020 | Book

The International Organization for Migration

The New ‘UN Migration Agency’ in Critical Perspective

Editors: Martin Geiger, Antoine Pécoud

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Book Series : International Political Economy Series

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About this book

In 2016, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) became part of the United Nations. With 173 member states and more than 400 field offices, the IOM—the new ‘UN migration agency’—plays a key role in migration governance. The contributors in this volume provide an in-depth and comprehensive insight into the IOM, its transformation, current structure and projects, as well as its capacity, self-understanding and political agenda.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter
Chapter 1. Introduction: The International Organization for Migration as the New ‘UN Migration Agency’
Abstract
This chapter introduces the edited volume entitled The International Organization for Migration: The New ‘UN Migration Agency’ in Critical Perspective. It outlines the key findings of each chapter and identifies the core cross-cutting arguments that emerge from the chapters of this book. After providing a short history of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) until its transformation into a United Nations (UN) agency in 2016, the chapter summarises the key issues raised by research on the IOM along four key topics: state sovereignty, the global economy, humanitarian protection/human rights, and knowledge production.
Antoine Pécoud
Chapter 2. Unfinished Business: The IOM and Migrants’ Human Rights
Abstract
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) presents itself as a non-normative intergovernmental agency which ensures orderly and humane management of migration. Yet migration and the treatment of migrants is an issue which is highly normatively charged—as evidenced by the 2016 New York Declaration, the protection of the human rights of migrants is a matter of great concern to the international community. The IOM joined the United Nations (UN) as a related organisation in 2016 but continued to reaffirm its status as a non-normative agency. In this chapter we examine the coherence of the IOM’s new position as a related organisation of the UN from the perspective of the UN as a normative agency charged with assuring that its members protect human rights. We focus on two anomalies. First, there is a conflict between the IOM’s Constitution, which requires respect for national laws, and the UN Charter, which asserts the primacy of international human rights. Second, there is a contrast between the IOM’s independence as a ‘related agency’—notably its lack of reporting obligations—and the position of other UN organisations engaged in migration, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), International Labour Organization (ILO) and Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). We argue that the IOM member states—who are also UN members—should amend the Constitution to give priority to international law and specifically to international human rights law. This would bring the organisation into conformity with the UN Charter and its UN relationship agreement. Doing so would also provide a criterion against which the IOM operations could be decided and assessed.
Elspeth Guild, Stefanie Grant, Kees Groenendijk
Chapter 3. Gendering Migration Management
Abstract
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) formally adopted the principle of gender mainstreaming in 1995, at the same time as it embraced its new mandate in Toward the 21st Century. This chapter examines the process of ‘gendering’ the IOM, with particular attention to its understanding of transnational care chains. It argues that, in many ways, the IOM’s gender discourse has been shaped to fit the IOM’s migration management discourse, a discourse that forms part of the broader international migration narrative. On the issue of transnational care chains, however, the IOM has commissioned a set of important studies that break with the gendered subset of these narratives. The IOM’s closer relationship with the UN also holds the promise of increasing the impact of the more critical discourse on its field operations.
Rianne Mahon
Chapter 4. Drivers of Expenditure Allocation in the IOM: Refugees, Donors, and International Bureaucracy
Abstract
Resources are key to the operations of international organisations (IOs) such as the International Organization for Migration (IOM). As many IOs and their international bureaucracies cannot rely on obligatory state contributions alone, the overall availability of resources therefore ultimately depends on IO bureaucracies’ mobilisation of additional voluntary funding from states and other donors. Focusing on the resourcing of IOM, we analyse almost two decades (1999–2016) of donor contributions and country-level expenditures of the agency, comparing these figures with similar data for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Through our analysis, we find that the IOM does not respond to refugee numbers in the same way that UNHCR does, while both organisations are responsive in their expenditure patterns to other populations of concern. We also assess the extent to which geographical distance from key donors plays a role in where the organisations allocate their funding. Here, the IOM expenditures shift in line with donor interests to a much greater extent than for the UNHCR. Our findings suggest that the IOM serves distinct political and operational purposes, sustained by a highly earmarked and projectised funding model that distinguishes it from the UNHCR and other IOs.
Ronny Patz, Svanhildur Thorvaldsdottir
Chapter 5. Between Migration and Development: The IOM’s Development Fund
Abstract
The international community increasingly considers it important to incorporate the intersection between migration and development in development strategies. This increase in attention has developed in parallel to the shift in development theory from a top-down, one-size-fits-all approach to community-based development. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) is a prominent promoter of the migration-development nexus. Seeking to harness the benefits of migration, its stated vision of development emphasises poverty reduction, community-based approaches and sustainable development. The IOM Development Fund has invested significantly in research, publications and projects under the label ‘migration and development’. These projects aim to incorporate the contributions of migrants in the development of their country of origin through economic and other types of international remittances. The approaches used by the IOM raise concerns about moving towards development strategies that shift the responsibility for development away from governments and on to individuals. This chapter analyses the IOM’s contributions to ‘development theory’ and four of their ‘migration and development’ projects to highlight the dangers of this development theory in practice.
Erin Newman-Grigg
Chapter 6. Measuring ‘Well-Governed’ Migration: The IOM’s Migration Governance Indicators
Abstract
This chapter examines how the International Organization for Migration (IOM) intervenes in global migration governance through the production of knowledge and the deployment of technical expertise. It analyses the IOM’s Migration Governance Indicators, a migration governance benchmarking metric created to define well-governed migration, evaluate institutional capacity to manage migration and monitor state progress towards the implementation of the migration-related targets contained in the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. It argues that the Migration Governance Indicators translate the meaning of well-governed migration into material form and make it possible for the IOM to govern at a distance by issuing symbolic judgements regarding states’ institutional capacity to manage migration. While the IOM describes itself as a non-normative organisation acting in the service of states, the Migration Governance Indicators serve a social and political purpose. Far from being politically impartial, the Migration Governance Indicators empower the IOM by consolidating its expert authority, enrolling various actors into the agenda of well-governed migration and legitimising its newfound institutional identity as the UN migration agency.
Corey Robinson
Chapter 7. The IOM in Building and Supporting Migration Management in China
Abstract
In 2016, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) became the IOM’s (International Organization for Migration) 165th member state. Triggered by its process of ‘opening up’, strong economic growth and increasing political influence, China has embarked on a dynamic and ambitious path of policy development in the area of migration. Many new policies have been introduced to encourage and facilitate private travel and business visits, as well as the immigration and even long-term, permanent presence of foreign professionals. This chapter explores the IOM’s growing collaboration with China. It contributes to the growing, yet still largely Eurocentric, scholarship on the role of the IOM and other international organisations in migration management. While the collaboration between the IOM and China has not yet reached the level of collaboration the IOM has been able to achieve with European Union (EU) countries, the IOM and partnership with the IOM will likely hold more significance for China in the coming years. China is on the brink of becoming an important player in global migration management due to the growth of its political influence at both the global and transnational policy level through the ‘Belt and Road’ Initiative (BRI), which is likely to trigger new flows of mobility and migration between BRI countries and China.
Yadi Zhang, Martin Geiger
Chapter 8. Knowledge Production at the IOM: Looking for Local Knowledge in Tajikistan
Abstract
In the mid-1990s, international organisations started releasing research produced and situated in the local realities of aid-receiving countries, calling it ‘local knowledge’. Over time, local knowledge became a new standard to design development projects by taking into account local complexities and a way to improve project implementation through the use of local solutions. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has also been keen on including local knowledge in its knowledge production schemes. This chapter examines how the IOM produces knowledge on migration in Tajikistan, where it has been operating since 1993 and how it incorporates local knowledge in its projects. It does so by taking a case study of a 2016 IOM research project on the vulnerability of Central Asian labour migrants returning from Russia, in which a strong argument about the ‘radicalisation potential of returning migrants’ was made. The chapter highlights by whom and how knowledge is produced at the IOM; what meaning local knowledge gains for different actors involved in the process; and if, and how, local knowledge is adapted to fit international settings. By way of example, this chapter argues that production of knowledge at the IOM is embedded in a broader economic and geopolitical context in which the organisation operates, questioning the possiblity of including pure, unfiltered local knowledge.
Karolina Kluczewska
Chapter 9. The IOM’s Missing Migrants Project: The Global Authority on Border Deaths
Abstract
The tragic shipwreck off the island of Lampedusa on 3 October 2013 spurred the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to take up the issue of border deaths by setting up the Missing Migrants Project (MMP), which compiles and monitors data on border deaths worldwide. By the summer of 2015, the project was online and increasingly cited as the source of data on border deaths. This chapter provides a critical analysis of the MMP and the IOM’s emergence as an authority on border deaths. It argues that taking up the issue of border deaths and incorporating it into the main tasks of the IOM’s new Global Migration Data Analysis Centre, as well as IOM Country Offices, has aided the IOM in presenting itself as both a technical and humanitarian actor. This has helped the IOM in gaining political legitimacy and in strengthening its position as the leading global player in the field of migration and border management. The chapter aims, firstly, to raise the question of how the MMP, while not being an official death count, has become a leading authority on border death data. Secondly, the chapter asks how the IOM presented the MMP to the public and stakeholders. Thirdly, the chapter critically analyses the IOM’s ‘neutral’ politics of counting.
Yussef Al Tamimi, Paolo Cuttitta, Tamara Last
Chapter 10. The IOM’s Humanitarian Border Management in the West African Ebola Crisis (2014–2016)
Abstract
The chapter focuses on the role of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in putting forward a humanitarian rationality to the governance of West African borders in response to the 2014–2016 Ebola virus epidemic. It reconstructs how the IOM as a central global actor in border security governance has sought to promote and apply its concept of ‘Humanitarian Border Management’ (HBM) to assist governments and border authorities with a more effective management of their borders. Through the analytical framework of ‘nodal governance’, the chapter analyses how the IOM aligns with and reproduces a political rationality of the ‘humanitarian border’ in its Ebola crisis response initiatives in West Africa. The chapter argues that the implementation of HBM carries significant ramifications for the reinforced linkage between humanitarian and security rationalities of governance in the regulation of West African mobility.
Tilmann Scherf
Chapter 11. Humanitarian Detention and Deportation: The IOM and Anti-Trafficking in Laos
Abstract
Since 1999, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) has been active in the fight against human trafficking in the Greater Mekong sub-region, particularly in Thailand, which is considered a major destination country for victims of trafficking. Taking Lao migrants as a case study, this chapter examines anti-trafficking programmes and their effects on women and girls identified as ‘victims of trafficking’ (VoT) or ‘at risk’ of human trafficking. It contrasts their experiences with the discursive and material tools developed and disseminated by the IOM which markedly shape the war against human trafficking and, more specifically, the disciplinary initiatives adopted by the region’s governments. On the basis of extensive ethnographic research in Laos, this study challenges the role played by the IOM in anti-trafficking processes of VoT rehabilitation and return and posits that these policies and programmes aimed at protecting women’s bodies come at the expense of their rights.
Estelle Miramond
Chapter 12. The IOM’s Crisis Management and the Expulsion of Ethiopians from Saudi Arabia
Abstract
Between November 2013 and March 2014, 163,018 Ethiopians were expelled from Saudi Arabia. The large-scale humanitarian operation set up to support the deportees can be considered to belong to a ‘crisis management’ framework. The creation of camps around Addis Ababa is emblematic of the incorporation of humanitarian logistics into post-deportation management. But the operation can also be understood as a trial run for future operations for receiving and reintegrating deportees. Since the legitimisation of forced returns through humanitarian devices and project funding are central to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and its policies promoting ‘sustainable returns’ and ‘reintegration’, this post-deportation device should be seen within a broader framework of migration management, which involves the IOM, states, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and private actors. Is it still relevant to speak in terms of ‘crisis management’ or was this case a test of a sustainable model of post-deportation assistance consistent with the global approach to migration promoted by the IOM?
Clara Lecadet
Chapter 13. Possible Futures? The New ‘UN Migration Agency’ and the Shifting Global Order
Abstract
This chapter discusses the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and its new status in the United Nations (UN) system. After having existed outside the UN system as an independent organisation for sixty-five years, in 2016 the IOM became a ‘related organisation’ of the UN. That same year, the IOM also became the lead agency for the Global Compact on Migration. While it is currently unclear to what extent this new framework on migration will become implemented, this chapter questions the possible future(s) of the IOM and its unique approach to ‘migration management’. By doing this, the chapter also situates the IOM in the broader global context. It argues that the IOM has always been more than a ‘migration agency’, and China’s new membership in the IOM, which notably also occurred in 2016, will likely have significant impacts on the IOM and global migration governance. At the same time this new partnership serves also as a clear demonstration of a significant shift in the global order, given the recent withdrawal of the US from the UN’s Global Compact process and its unwillingness to further cooperate in a multilateral governance of migration.
Martin Geiger
Backmatter
Metadata
Title
The International Organization for Migration
Editors
Martin Geiger
Antoine Pécoud
Copyright Year
2020
Publisher
Springer International Publishing
Electronic ISBN
978-3-030-32976-1
Print ISBN
978-3-030-32975-4
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32976-1