Impact of Ratifying the 1990 UN Convention on the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Family: Case Studies of the Philippines and Sri L

UNESCO release on the report

The full report.

"On 1 July 2003, the 1990 United Nations International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (hereafter: ICMR) officially entered into force as an instrument of international law that will ensure protection and respect for the human rights of all migrants.

"In the Asia Pacific region only three sending countries (the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Tajikistan) have so far ratified the ICMR, despite the region constituting an important source of labour migrants and intra-regional labour migration taking place on a large scale..........

"When a country ratifies an international treaty, it assumes a legal obligation to implement the rights in that treaty. But this is only the first step because recognition of rights on paper is not sufficient to guarantee that they will be enjoyed in practice..........

"This report attempts to investigate the legislative side (implementation of Convention’s content ) and the promotional aspects (i.e. ‘external use’) vis-à-vis the destination countries and beyond in the context of two State Parties that are located in Asia — Sri Lanka and the Philippines. We focus on the obligations of both countries in their role as migrant sending countries but will also give consideration to the situation of in-coming foreign workers."