Fifth Meeting of States Parties

 to Convention on Migrant Workers

1^st Meeting (AM)

Seven Seats Filled on Committee Monitoring Migrant Rights Convention;

 

Three More Ratifications Bring Number of States Parties to 45

 

States Parties to the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families today elected by secret ballot seven members to the Committee that monitors the treaty’s implementation, to replace those whose four-year terms will expire on 31 December.

The Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, one of the seven United Nations-linked human rights treaty bodies, is composed of 14 independent experts.  It held its first session in March 2004 and has held 15 sessions so far.  Members are elected to four-year terms by States Parties, in accordance with article 72 of the Convention.

The Convention was adopted by General Assembly resolution 45/158 on 18 December 1990 and entered force in July 2003.  It is widely viewed as a comprehensive international instrument for the protection of migrant workers’ rights.  By aiming to protect migrant workers and their families, it emphasizes the connection between migration and human rights and is said to set a moral standard and serve as a guide to the promotion of those rights in each country.

With 43 States Parties voting, the following experts were elected today:

Francisco Carrión-Mena (Ecuador) — 41 votes

Khedidja Ladjel (Algeria) — 41 votes

Marco Nuñez-Melgar Maguiña (Peru) — 41 votes

Myriam Poussi (Burkina Faso) — 41 votes

Abdelhamid el Jamri (Morocco) — 39 votes

Azad Taghizade (Azerbaijan) — 39 votes

Ahmed Hassan el-Borai (Egypt) — 36 votes

Among those elected, five experts were re-elected.  Khedidja Ladjel and Marco Nuñez-Melgar Maguiña were newly elected.

Shedding light on recent developments, Craig Mokhiber, Chief of the Development, Economic and Social Issues Branch at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), noted that since the Committee last met, three more States had ratified the Convention (Guyana, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Bangladesh), bringing the total number of States Parties to 45.  However, there was still room for improvement, he said.  The limited number of States who had ratified the Convention remained the most significant challenge to the Committee in ensuring the protection of migrant workers’ rights.  His Office continued to use occasions such as the yearly commemoration of the International Migrants Day to promote the treaty’s further ratification.

He reported that during 2010 and 2011, the Committee had considered six initial and two second periodic reports and, in each case, had adopted conclusions and recommendations aimed at the national implementation of the Convention.  The Committee had also recently addressed the situation of migrant domestic workers and held a day of general discussion during its fifteenth session in September on the rights of migrant workers and members of their families. 

At the outset of the Meeting, Ertuğrul Apakan (Turkey) was elected to serve as Chair and Raymond Wolfe (Jamaica) as its Vice-Chair.

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For information media • not an official record