The Vatican praised the adoption by more than 160 nations of a key agreement on global migration, saying today’s migration challenges are better tackled together than with “isolationist” stances.
The U.N. Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration “includes a comprehensive framework of best practices and policy instruments to increase international cooperation and sharing of responsibility in the governance of migration,” Cardinal Pietro Parolin, head of the Vatican delegation told government leaders.
The agreement, which is not legally binding, gives countries “the space to respond to their national circumstances and priorities, in full respect of international law and of the human rights of all migrants, regardless of their status,” he said at the gathering on December 10.
“Its implementation will help all governments, as well as nongovernmental entities, including faith-based organizations, collectively to manage migration in a more safe, orderly and regular manner, something no state can achieve along,” said the cardinal who is the Vatican Secretary of State.
More than 160 nations formally adopted the agreement December 10th at an international conference in Marrakech, Morocco. The United States, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Chile and a handful of European countries were among the more than a dozen nations that did not support the pact and its provisions.
Cardinal Parolin noted the refusal of some nations to take part in the conference or in the process of drafting the agreement. The Vatican, however, “is convinced that the enormous challenges that migration poses are best faced through multilateral processes rather than isolationist policies,” he said.
While the Vatican supported the compact, he said, it will present “its reservations in due time.”
Nonetheless, the global compact is still a “significant advance in the international community’s shared responsibility to act in solidarity with people on the move, especially those who find themselves in very precarious situations,” he said, as it allows states to “improve their respective migration policies and, together, the international management of migration.”
“As we have seen in recent years,” he said, when challenges “are not managed well, crises can form, rhetoric can eclipse reason, and migrants can be seen more as threats than as brothers and sisters in need of solidarity and basic services.”
“The Global Compact on Migration attempts to assist the international community to prevent crises and tragedies,” he said. “at the same time, it also seeks to improve the governance of migration which is bound to increase as the international community grows more economically, socially and politically interconnected.”
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