Yasmine Ergas

Model International Mobility Convention

People are as mobile as they ever were in our globalized world. Yet the movement of people across borders lacks global regulation, leaving many people unprotected in irregular and dire situations and some States concerned that their borders have become irrelevant. And international mobility—the movement of individuals across borders for any length of time as visitors, students, tourists, labor migrants, entrepreneurs, long-term residents, family members, asylum seekers, or refugees—has no common definition or legal framework. There does exist a well-established refugee regime based on the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Additional Protocol, both implemented by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). As the nature of conflict has changed in recent decades, however, this regime has shown strain and weakness. Today there are more than sixty-five million displaced persons in the world, a level not seen since World War II. Mixed flows of labor migrants and refugees fleeing for safety and economic prospects have created a crisis in the asylum-seeking process. Those forced to