Migration and Human Rights: The United Nations Convention on Migrant Workers' Rights

The UN Convention on Migrant Workers' Rights is the most comprehensive international treaty in the field of migration and human rights. Adopted in 1990 and entered into force in 2003, it sets a standard in terms of access to human rights for migrants. However, it suffers from a marked indifference: only forty states have ratified it and no major immigration country has done so. This highlights how migrants remain forgotten in terms of access to rights. Even though their labour is essential in the world economy, the non-economic aspect of migration and especially migrants' rights remain a neglected dimension of globalisation. This volume provides in-depth information on the Convention and on the reasons behind states' reluctance towards its ratification. It brings together researchers, international civil servants and NGO members and relies upon an interdisciplinary perspective that includes not only law, but also sociology and political science.

Paul De Guchteneire is Head of the International Migration Programme at UNESCO and Director of the International Journal on Multicultural Societies. Antoine Pcoud is a migration specialist with UNESCO's International Migration and Multicultural Policies Section. He is also Research Associate at the Unit de Recherche Migrations et Socit, University of Paris VII, and at Migrations Internationales, Espaces et Socits, University of Poitiers (France). Ryszard Cholewinski is Migration Policy and Research Specialist at the international Organization for Migration, and former Reader in Law at the University of Leicester (1992-2005).