ARI Working Paper Series

The subject of migrants’ rights typically conjures up a legalistic understanding as it relates to international human rights law. By contrast, this paper attempts to contribute to the debate on migrants’ human rights by focusing not only on normative and legal aspects of international human rights law, but also on the issue of political participation which points to the importance of institutions or organisations through which to channel advocacy. In the realm of work, it is the labour movement through trade unions which has historically constituted an important institutional entity for the representation of workers’ interests.

The main features of the prevailing forms of migration today (short term nature, informalisation, and feminisation), however, pose a specific challenge to labour union organising. It is alternative organizations such as migrant worker associations or NGOs that have taken on an important role as rights advocates, and there is growing evidence of civil society activism locally and the forming of intra-regional networks to address and promote a migrants’ rights agenda in Asia and elsewhere.

The prevailing flows of economic migration today also call for a paradigm shift which can incorporate greater levels of ‘transnationalism’ (i.e. maintenance of a strong link between country of origin and destination). To reflect the nature of much of today’s migration, our conventional understanding of concepts such as citizenship and human rights need to be re-assessed for their validity or relevance. This is where the conception of ‘transnationalisation of rights’ enters the debate which is to highlight the simultaneous responsibility of origin and destination countries and societies in the protection of migrant workers.