The Marrakesh Compact

Em. Prof. Marc BOSSUYT (University of Antwerp)

The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, adopted in Marrakech on 11 December 2018, is not a treaty and thus not a legally binding text. As stated explicitly in the Global Compact, it presents (point 7) or it is (point 15, b) “a non-legally binding cooperative framework”. Consequently, that text was never destined to be signed and ratified, but simply to be adopted, either by a vote or, as happened in Marrakech, by consensus. It has been adopted at the Intergovernmental Conference in Marrakech “without a vote” by the 164 States present. Download full document