The following is original content from the Model International Mobility Convention (MIMC), an initiative of Carnegie Council, republished with permission as part of a collaborative initiative. MIMC republication of Climate Refugees’ report to the Biden administration can be accessed here, as well as the report on climate displacement in the Lake Chad Basin, found here.

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.

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. With the aim to help the reader navigate through the MIMC and the rights it contains, a visualization of the rights outlined in the MIMC can be found here.

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. 

The Model International Mobility Convention was developed by a Commission of eminent academic and policy experts in the fields on migration, human rights, national security, labor economics and refugee law. The Commission came together to debate and develop the Convention in workshops conducted regularly from spring 2015 until it was finalized in April 2017.

Climate Refugees is a public signatory to the Convention.

For more on MIMC, head to their website.

Watch Professor Michael W. Doyle present “The Model International Mobility Convention: Beyond Migrants and Refugees” at the American Philosophical Society. As one of the co-directors of the Columbia Global Policy Initiative's project on International Migration, Michael Doyle helped develop the Model International Mobility Convention.

Michael Doyle is a University Professor at Columbia University, affiliated with the School of International and Public Affairs, the Department of Political Science, and the Law School, and the former Director of the Columbia Global Policy Initiative.