Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All

Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families

Fortieth session

Summary record ( p artial )* of th e 608th meeting**

Held at the Palais Wilson, Geneva, on Thursday, 17 April 2025, at 3 p.m.

Chair:Ms. Diallo

Contents

Organizational matters

Closure of the session

The discussion covered in the summary record began at 4.35 p.m.

Organizational matters

The Chair said that efforts to save the lives and protect the human rights of migrants must be rapidly scaled up. Current pathways for safe and regular migration had failed to respond to migration trends, with the result that migrants often resorted to hazardous and irregular migration routes that left them vulnerable to violence, exploitation and even death. Migration issues cut across the humanitarian and development spectrum and must be taken into account in the relevant instruments and forums, including the Global Compact on Refugees, the Global Refugee Forum and the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and in processes related to the Sustainable Development Goals.

As at 21 February 2025, there were 60 States Parties to the Convention. Zimbabwe had deposited its instrument of accession on 5 November 2024, thereby becoming the sixtieth Party, and the Convention had entered into force for that State on 1 March 2025. The Committee had continued its campaign to promote ratification by carrying out awareness‑raising activities in collaboration with States Parties, the Inter-Parliamentary Union and civil society organizations and through dissemination of its general comments worldwide. Nonetheless, of all the core international human rights instruments, the Convention remained the one with the fewest ratifications; the Convention on the Rights of the Child, for example, had 196 Parties. States had accepted many of the standards enshrined in the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families via ratification of other human rights treaties whose provisions covered the core rights codified in the Convention.

The treaty body system had been affected by chronic resource constraints, in addition to the Organization’s current liquidity crisis. That situation limited the protection of human rights and prevented the treaty bodies from fully, efficiently and effectively implementing their mandated activities. Treaty body resources should be strengthened to reflect the increase in ratifications, State party reports, individual communications and requests for urgent action. Despite those constraints, the treaty body strengthening process had yielded significant results following the adoption of General Assembly resolution 68/268. The treaty body Chairs had presented unified conclusions on how to make the treaty body system fit for purpose, coherent and sustainable, and on that basis the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) had issued a detailed working paper. All the recommendations were based on the 2020 review process led by States.

At the most recent meeting of the Chairs of the treaty bodies, held in June 2024 (A/79/292), States had been urged to endorse the introduction of a predictable eight-year calendar of reviews, with follow-up reviews in between, and other pending proposals for strengthening the treaty body system, including the provision of resources for the proposals’ implementation. In the Pact for the Future, adopted by General Assembly resolution 79/1 of 22 September 2024, the Member States had requested the Secretary-General to assess the need for adequate, predictable, increased and sustainable financing of the United Nations human rights mechanisms for efficient and effective mandate delivery to enable them to respond to the range of human rights challenges facing the international community with impartiality, objectivity and non-selectivity. Regrettably, General Assembly resolution 79/165 of 17 December 2024 on the human rights treaty body system did not address the Chairs’ recommendations on a predictable eight-year calendar, including harmonization of the treaty bodies’ working methods.

Summarizing the work of the Committee at its fortieth session, she noted that constructive dialogues had been held with representatives of Mexico, the Niger and Jamaica and concluding observations had been adopted on the fourth periodic report of Mexico, the second periodic report of the Niger and the combined initial and second periodic reports of Jamaica. In addition, the Committee had adopted a list of issues on the third periodic report of Tajikistan under the traditional reporting procedure, as well as lists of issues prior to reporting on the initial report of Fiji, the second periodic report of Guinea and the fourth periodic report of Ecuador under the simplified reporting procedure.

To diversify and strengthen its collaboration with the International Labour Organization (ILO), the Committee had met with a delegation headed by the Chief of the Labour Migration Branch of the International Labour Office. The Committee had submitted a number of proposals to that Office, in particular on the joint preparation of training and capacity-building materials for the full range of partners, including employers’ and workers’ organizations, trade unions and universities; the strengthening of advocacy campaigns for the ratification of the Convention and of ILO conventions and standards; the possible conduct of a joint thematic study on labour inspection; preparation of a joint letter advocating ratification of the Convention, in collaboration with the ILO Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations; discussion of a future general comment on the convergence between ILO labour migration standards and the Convention; and finalization of the road map for collaboration between the International Labour Office and the Committee. The Office, in turn, had drawn attention to the importance of involving the ILO Committee of Experts in those efforts and to the fact that each of that body’s general observations could concern only a single ILO convention or a single topic covered by more than one convention.

Also at the current session, the Committee had discussed and provisionally adopted the two general comments (No. 38/7 and No. 39/8) which it was to adopt jointly with the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. It was hoped that the two texts would be adopted in final form during the two Committees’ concurrent sessions in December 2025.

The Committee had also held a dialogue with the Committee against Torture. The latter Committee’s advocacy of ratification of the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families and its efforts to ensure that migrants were treated with dignity and humanity, including in detention centres, were greatly appreciated. On 15 April 2025, the Committee had held a public event to launch its general comment No. 6 on the convergent protection of the rights of migrant workers and members of their families through the Convention and the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration. Representatives of States, United Nations agencies and civil society had taken part in the event.

Recently she had met with the Director of the Human Rights Council and Treaty Mechanisms Division of OHCHR to raise concerns about the availability of human and logistical resources for the implementation of the Committee’s mandate. In the light of the severe liquidity crisis, the Committee’s own advocacy efforts were particularly important. The regional consultations held jointly with the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination were an example of good practice. The Committee had endorsed the provisional list of State party reports to be examined at its forty-first and forty-second sessions and had identified country rapporteurs for that purpose, although the list was subject to change in view of human resource constraints.

Closure of the session

After the customary exchange of courtesies, the Chair declared the fortieth session of the Committee closed.

The meeting rose at 5 p.m.