Croatia said that it will not sign the United Nations’ Global Compact for Migration. The country joins a growing number of countries that have not signed the agreement, including the United States, Hungary, and Austria.
On July 13, with the exception of the United States, all other U.N. member nations—of which there are 192—had approved the GCM. However, a growing number of countries have since decided not to sign the non-binding pact, including Hungary and Austria.
Countries Pull Out
The United States was the first to pull out of the compact in December 2017. Hungary withdrew from the agreement on June 18. Austria announced it would reject the migration compact on Oct. 31.A number of countries have expressed they would also like to back out of the deal, although they have yet to state their final decision. In July, Australia expressed reservations. On Nov. 1, the Czech Republic announced that it would like to back out of the deal. On the following day, Poland expressed that it “is very likely” that it would also not be a part of the U.N. pact.
The migration compact came about following the adoption of the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants on Sept. 19, 2016, by 193 U.N. member states.
According to the U.N. website, the GCM provides a framework for facilitating safe and orderly migration globally, with an effort to deal with migration “in a holistic and comprehensive manner.”
It also sets out a range of actionable commitments, which could possibly influence legislation and policymaking for member states.
Concerns About Sovereignty
The Trump administration said that the pact, which had been recognized by the Obama administration, is inconsistent with national sovereignty.“We simply cannot in good faith support a process that could undermine the sovereign right of the United States to enforce our immigration laws and secure our borders,” he said.
Australia voiced similar concerns about the U.N. global migration deal in July, saying it wouldn’t sign the agreement “in its current form” as it was not in the nation’s interest, their immigration minister, Peter Dutton, said.
Dutton said at the time that Australia won’t “sign a deal that sacrifices anything in terms of our border protection policies.”
Migration ‘Cannot Become a Human Right’
Recently on Oct. 31, the Austrian government said it wouldn’t sign the migration deal, citing, among other things, fears about a possible watering-down of the distinction between legal and illegal migration, the Epoch Times reported.“Some of the contents go diametrically against our position,” Austrian Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache said on Oct. 31.
“Migration is not and cannot become a human right,” he added. “It cannot be that someone receives a right to migration because of the climate or poverty.”
On Nov. 1, Czech prime minister Andrej Babis said he also opposed the pact.
‘An Encouragement to Migration’
When Hungary announced its withdrawal from the agreement in June, Hungary’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said in a statement that the agreement is “totally at odds with the country’s security interests.”
“The primary issue for us is the security of Hungary and the Hungarian people,” Szijjártó said in the statement. “According to the government’s position, the U.N. Global Compact for Migration is in conflict with common sense and also with the intent to restore European security.
“Hungary does not regard the goals and principles declared by the compact as valid guidelines with regard to itself. In addition, the document does not deal with the truly existing fundamental human rights of people who want nothing else than to be able to live in peace and security in their own homelands,” he said.
Szijjártó added that although the fundamental premise of the agreement is a “good and unavoidable phenomenon,” the document itself is “dangerous, extremist, biased, and an encouragement to migration.”
“It could serve as an inspiration for millions to set out from home,” he said.
