U.S. Rejects UN Global Compacts on Refugees and Migrants

UN refugee chief praises Iran - while his agency slams the U.S.

The United Nations General Assembly affirmed what is called the “Global Compact on Refugees” on Monday. There were 181 UN member states voting in favor of approving the compact, with the United States and Hungary voting against and the Dominican Republic, Eritrea and Libya abstaining. On Wednesday, the General Assembly is scheduled to vote and approve, by a somewhat smaller margin, a separate global migration pact formally known as the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration. This compact was already adopted by 164 states at an international inter-governmental conference last week in Marrakech, Morocco. The United States opposes this compact as well.

Both the refugee and migration global compacts are said to be legally non-binding, although they purport to establish international “norms.” Globalists at the United Nations and elsewhere believe that such norms create, or broaden the scope of, a “universal” right, declared as such by all or a significant majority of the UN’s member states. As interpretations of norms acknowledging such rights are repeated in international bodies and incorporated into the laws or judicial rulings of more and more UN member states, they can then become a part of what international lawyers refer to as legally binding “customary international law,” whether there is a formal treaty or not.

The refugee and migration compacts state that they are guided by or rest on various international human rights legal instruments. The United States is not a party to a number of these instruments and does not consider itself legally bound by them, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The United States is a party to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 protocol, which the Global Compact on Refugees cites but goes far beyond by seeking to “translate” the principle of international cooperation “into concrete and practical action.” The compact purports “to provide a basis for predictable and equitable burden-and responsibility-sharing among all United Nations Member States,” which includes “hosting and supporting the world’s refugees.” The refugee compact contains a detailed program of action and a “comprehensive refugee response framework” under United Nations coordination to accomplish this objective. As just one example, the refugee compact calls upon member states to “resettle at least 25 percent of annual resettlement submissions within six months” of “referral” by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and to follow UNHCR priorities and criteria for resettlement.

Read the rest from Joseph Klein HERE.

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