Global Campus awareness-raising event

The Event

EIUC, the European Inter-University Centre for Human Rights and Democratisation, is delighted to host a Global Campus awareness-raising event and conference on the UN Migrant Workers Convention within the framework of the GC on 28 July 2014 at its premises in the Monastery of San Nicolò in Lido-Venice. The conference will feature some of the leading experts on the Convention, as well as representatives of the Committee on Migrant Workers and the Secretariat of the Committee.

Objectives and Scope of the Event

The event, open to the public and free of charge, will raise awareness of the Global Campus and foster debate on the main human rights issues in relation to migration. In this respect, the seminar will bring into focus one of the core international human rights instruments, the UN Migrant Workers Convention.

A forum of distinguished experts and academics will analyse the reasons for the lack of support for the Convention from States, the possibility of advancing the issue of ratification and the role that civil society can play in this process.

Within the scope of this event, the winners of the competition “Migrants and Community Action” launched by the Global Campus and open to GC Alumni and students will be announced to the public and their photos displayed on screen. 

The UN International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families

The UN Migrant Workers Convention, adopted by the UN General Assembly on 18 December 1990, is one of the ten core international human rights instruments. Broadly speaking, the Convention follows the same pattern as other international human rights treaties such as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Like the CRC, the Migrant Workers Convention takes the rights set out in the ICCPR and the ICESCR, and codifies and elaborates on them in relation to a particularly vulnerable category of persons, in this case migrant workers and members of their families. 

In terms of ratification, however, the Migrant Workers Convention is the least successful of the core instruments. It was not until 2003, 13 years after being opened for signature by all Sates, that the Convention gained the requisite 20 ratifications which allowed its entry into force. In the intervening 11 years a further 27 States have ratified the Convention, bringing the total number of States Parties to 47. The CRC, by contrast, entered into force in September 1990, less than a year after it was opened for signature. There are currently 194 States Parties to the CRC.

For further information please contact Alan Desmond.


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