29 July 2016 Updates from Civil Society – ISSUE 6

The third revision of the political declaration and annexes for the 19 September High-level Summit for Refugees and Migrants was released on 28 July, by the Permanent Missions of Ireland and Jordan, the co-facilitators of the Summit process. Read the new drafts of the political declaration, annex I andannex II.

According to a new proposal by the co-facilitators, pending approval by the Member States the political declaration of the 19 September Summit would be adopted with two annexes, one on refugees and one on migration, in order “to avoid any appearance of privileging one Global Compact over the other”. The draft annex on refugees is entitled “Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework” (CRRF), and is proposed to be further refined into a Global Compact on Refugees by 2018. The annex on migration sets out a roadmap for the elaboration and adoption of the Global Compact for Safe, Regular and Orderly Migration. It is proposed that both compacts are to be adopted in 2018.

In intensive and rushed negotiations taking place throughout the last weeks, Member States have been working towards finding consensus on the political declaration and annexes. Negotiations are proposed to be concluded today 29 July. On this UN website you can find some of the submitted statements from (groups of) Member States from  previous negotiations as well as statements from other stakeholders, including civil society.

Many civil society organizations have been working closely to advocate key messages to Member States for the outcome documents. Organizations on the self-organised civil society Action Committee have been putting out consolidated feedback on the drafts of the political declaration and annexes, including priorities and red-lines on the latest draft.  Civil society has also provided suggestions for the drafts of the political declaration and annexes at the regular civil-society consultations with the co-facilitators. The latest civil society consultation of 28 July can be viewed here.

On 28 July a group of non-government organizations released a joint statement expressing their concern over how the Outcome document is being shaped, and suggesting that the opportunity presented by the Summit to help the millions of refugees and migrants in need is in danger of slipping away. The organisations urgently call on governments to “act now, this week, to agree an outcome document worthy of this cause”, arguing that an outcome that does no more than repeat existing commitments will be a failure rather than a success. Read the full statement here.

The President of the UN General Assembly has published a summary of the Informal Interactive Multi-stakeholder Hearing that took place on 18 July in support of the preparatory process towards the Summit for refugees and migrants on 19 September 2016. The summary has been shared with all Member States of the UN. The hearing brought together close to 300 representatives from civil society and other stakeholders from every region of the world who work on various issues relating to refugees, migrants, human rights and development.
The summary report can be read here
The two-part recording of the Hearing can be viewed here

• Civil society statement – World leaders must step up efforts to conclude robust & principled deal for refugees and migrants
• ISSUE #5 of this newsletter for and by civil society in the lead up to the September Summit
• Oxfam’s ‘Stand as One’ petition
• Amnesty: Time for Change on Refugees
• Education International defends the rights of refugee and migrant children and educators at the UN
• Emergency Appeal: refugee resettlement (Church World Service)

United Nations and Member States

• Peter Sutherland, United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General for International Migration and Development – Defusing Migration
• Report of the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants
• General Assembly decision makes International Organization for Migration part of UN system
• Ban hopes for further cooperation with Arab League
• UN special envoy for Yemen called on Arab leaders to “actively participate” in the UN General Assembly’s Summit

In the news:

• IRIN – Will the refugee summit be “a missed opportunity”?
• News Talk – 41 bodies wash up on Libyan coast as Amnesty calls for concrete deal on refugees
• IISD – Stakeholders Share Views on Refugees, Migrants Ahead of HLM
• IDN-InDepthNews – Waiting for Effective Solutions from UN Summit on Refugees
• UN News Center – Countries need to be reminded they are built on diversity, says UN Deputy Secretary-General

Ms. Wies MAAS in New York (maas@icmc.net) and
Ms. Emer GROARKE in Brussels (groarke@icmc.net)
Ms. Melissa PITOTTI in Geneva
Ms. Eva SANDIS in New York