Is Migration a Coherent Field of International Law? The Example of Labor Migration

Abstract

A critical characteristic of migration is that it involves people in all their complexity, and with all their complex needs. Therefore, migration, perhaps more than any other field of international law, is difficult to separate as a body of law from human rights, trade, taxation, investment, health, security, etc. In this brief essay, I will describe two critical, and distinct, linkages that prevent us from cabining migration as a separate field. Both arise in the area of labor migration. Indeed, it is through linkage with other fields of international law, such as trade and investment, that states could establish international legal commitments to liberalize migration.