The UN Committee on Migrant Workers as a Venue for Protecting the Rights of Migrant Detainees: A GDP Briefing with CMW Member Pablo Ceriani

22 March 2022
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    Global Detention Project

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    News & Events

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In March 2022, the GDP hosted the second in its series of interactive webinars on international human rights mechanisms and their application to situations of migration-related detention. On 15 March and 21 March, we held events in English and Spanish (respectively) with Mr. Pablo Ceriani, CMW Member and Professor of Human Rights of Migrants at the University of Buenos Aires. More than 70 people from 50 different civil society organisations from around the world participated in both events. 

The aim of the webinar was to provide information on the relevance of the Convention on the Rights of all Migrant Workers and their Families to promoting protections for migrant detainees, the role of the UN Committee on Migrant Workers in overseeing implementation of the treaty, and the various tools and opportunities offered by the committee for advocacy. Among the issues Mr. Ceriani addressed were the CMW’s recent General Comment No. 5 on migrants’ rights to liberty, the broad application of the convention to all non-citizens (including refugees and asylum seekers), and the need for a concerted civil society campaign to boost ratifications of the convention (which has been ratified by only 56 countries, primarily from the Global South) as well as its Article 76, which would allow civil society organisations to bring individual cases with the Committee. 

In addition to Mr. Ceriani’s presentation, both the English- and Spanish-language events benefitted from brief presentations by representatives of the Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants, who discussed complementary aspects of the two UN mandates, as well as by several civil society organisations from around the world who presented their experiences engaging the CMW, and the challenges they face in promoting migrants’ rights–both in countries that have ratified the convention and those that have not. The presentations were followed by lively exchanges of questions and ideas amongst the participating CSOs.