Introduction to International Migration Law
Strengthened migration governance is recognized as central to ensuring that greater human mobility is beneficial to communities of origin, destination and transit, and in protecting the rights of migrants. Many conventions exist at the global and regional levels applying to those involved in the migration process, but these instruments are spread across various branches of law: labour, immigration, human rights, refugee, humanitarian, and criminal laws. This body of law is now commonly referred to as “International Migration Law” (IML). With the emergence of IML over the last decade, this Course offers an opportunity to study these instruments from the exclusive perspective of international migration.
The overall objective of this course is to advance a better understanding of International Migration Law by providing a comprehensive overview of the international legal framework, the rights and duties of states and migrants and various aspects of law that impact migrants and the migration process.
The self-paced online course contains the following modules:
- Module 1: Introducing the Issue
- Module 2: International Migration Law
- Module 3: Authority and Responsibility of States
- Module 4: Implementation of IML at the Regional Level
Learning activities are based on UNITAR's sound adult learning pedagogical principles. They are distributed in such a way to ensure the achievement of the learning objectives in a flexible manner: learning materials can indeed be consulted in a non-linear way so as to provide participants with a high degree of flexibility in choosing the learning pace that is the most adequate to them. Thus, participants are responsible for their own learning throughout the course. Each module aims to deepen the participant's skills and understanding as well as provide them with the opportunity to network and dialogue with other participants, sharing country specific experiences.
The course is moderated by a high level expert on migration issues.
Learning materials include the following elements:
- Basic reading materials (compulsory) intended to understand the basic concepts and principles of modules' subject matter;
- Advanced reading materials (optional) for participants willing to learn more about the topic;
- External links to relevant publications, reports and websites;
- Glossaries of terms and of acronyms as supportive learning tools;
- A community discussion board (forum) for participants to discuss topics initiated by the course moderator and to post questions, comments or new discussions.
Technical Requirements
- Hardware: 64 MB of RAM, 1 GB of free disk space;
- MODEM: 56 K;
- Platform: Windows 95 or later versions, Mac OS 9 or OSx;
- A good internet connection is necessary
- Browser: IE, Mozilla Firefox, etc.;