The Global Compact on Refugees is an international agreement, prepared under the auspices of the United Nations, that provides a framework to improve the worldwide response to the needs of refugees. [1]
Governments make pledges under the compact at the Global Refugee Forum regular meeting. [2]
The United Nations General Assembly affirmed the compact (resolution A/RES/73/151) [3] on 17 December 2018. [4] [5] 181 nations voted in favour of the compact, the United States and Hungary voted against, Eritrea, Libya, and the Dominican Republic abstained from the vote. [5]
The agreement of the compact was described by Filippo Grandi as the most pivotal moment he had witnessed in his 34 years of working with refugees. [5] Louise Arbour, the United Nations Special Representative for International Migration, described the international agreement as "wonderful", "historic" and "a great achievement for multilateralism." [6]
Kofi Atta Annan was a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh secretary-general of the United Nations from 1997 to 2006. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize. He was the founder and chairman of the Kofi Annan Foundation, as well as chairman of The Elders, an international organisation founded by Nelson Mandela.
The United Nations (UN) is a diplomatic and political international organization with the intended purpose of maintaining international peace and security, developing friendly relations among nations and countries, achieving international cooperation, and serving as a center for coordinating the actions of member states. It is widely recognised as the world's largest international organization. The UN is headquartered in New York City, in international territory with certain privileges extraterritorial to the United States, and the UN has other offices in Geneva, Nairobi, Vienna, and The Hague, where the International Court of Justice is headquartered at the Peace Palace.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a United Nations agency mandated to aid and protect refugees, forcibly displaced communities, and stateless people, and to assist in their voluntary repatriation, local integration or resettlement to a third country. It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and has 20,305 staff working in 136 countries as of December 2023.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) is a United Nations related organization working in the field of migration. The organization implements operational assistance programmes for migrants, including internally displaced persons, refugees, and migrant workers.
An internally displaced person (IDP) is someone who is forced to leave their home but who remains within their country's borders. They are often referred to as refugees, although they do not fall within the legal definitions of a refugee.
António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres is a Portuguese politician and diplomat who is serving as the ninth and current secretary-general of the United Nations since 2017. A member of the Portuguese Socialist Party, Guterres served as prime minister of Portugal from 1995 to 2002.
The United Nations Global Compact is a non-binding United Nations pact to get businesses and firms worldwide to adopt sustainable and socially responsible policies, and to report on their implementation. The UN Global Compact is the world's largest corporate sustainability and corporate social responsibility initiative, with more than 20,000 corporate participants and other stakeholders in over 167 countries. The organization consists of a global agency, and local "networks" or agencies for each participating country. Under the Global Compact, companies are brought together with UN agencies, labour groups and civil society.
In international law, a stateless person is someone who is "not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law". Some stateless people are also refugees. However, not all refugees are stateless, and many people who are stateless have never crossed an international border. At the end of 2022, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimated 4.4 million people worldwide as either stateless or of undetermined nationality, 90,800 (+2%) more than at the end of 2021.
Filippo Grandi is an Italian diplomat and United Nations official, currently serving as United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. He previously served as Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and United Nations Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan. He received the Olympic Laureate award during the Paris 2024 Olympics Opening Ceremony.
Canada is a member of various international organizations and forums. Canada was a founding member of the United Nations in 1945 and formed the North American Aerospace Defense Command together with the United States in 1958. The country has membership in the World Trade Organization, the Five Eyes, the G7 and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The country joined the Organization of American States (OAS) in 1990, and seeks to expand its ties to Pacific Rim economies through membership in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC). Canada ratified the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, and seven principal UN human rights conventions and covenants since then. As of 2023, Canada is a signatory to 15 free trade agreements with 51 different countries, and has diplomatic and consular offices in over 270 locations in approximately 180 countries.
Human rights and climate change is a conceptual and legal framework under which international human rights and their relationship to global warming are studied, analyzed, and addressed. The framework has been employed by governments, United Nations organizations, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, human rights and environmental advocates, and academics to guide national and international policy on climate change under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the core international human rights instruments. In 2022 Working Group II of the IPCC suggested that "climate justice comprises justice that links development and human rights to achieve a rights-based approach to addressing climate change".
United Nations General Assembly Resolution 48/144 of 20 December 1993 is a resolution in which the General Assembly expressed its concern at the ongoing degradation of the humanitarian situation in Azerbaijan because of the displacement of considerable number of citizens due to Nagorno Karabakh conflict and supporting "emergency international assistance to refugees and displaced persons in Azerbaijan". The resolution is titled “48/114. Emergency international assistance to refugees and displaced persons in Azerbaijan”. It became the fifth United Nations document concerning Nagorno-Karabakh and the first United Nations General Assembly document on humanitarian aid to those affected by this conflict. This resolution was the first international document affirming the number of refugees and displaced persons in Azerbaijan exceeded one million. The document does not make any specific reference to previous UN resolutions on the ongoing conflict, but "its relevant resolutions regarding humanitarian assistance to refugees and displaced persons". The resolution was adopted by consensus without voting.
The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) is an intergovernmentally negotiated agreement, prepared under the auspices of the United Nations, that describes itself as covering "all dimensions of international migration in a holistic and comprehensive manner".
The following lists events that happened with or in collaboration with the United Nations and its agencies in the year 2019.
Sustainable Development Goals and Lebanon explains major contributions launched in Lebanon towards the advancement of the Sustainable Development Goals SDGs and the 2030 agenda.
Sana Mustafa is a Canada-based Syrian refugee, author, activist and non-profit founder.
The Global Refugee-Led Network (GRN), previously known as the Network for Refugee Voices, is an international not for profit organization that organizes advocacy between local and national refugee organizations.
The Network for Refugee Voices was an international refugee network that advocated for refugee voices to be included in global refugee policy decisions.
Volker Türk is an Austrian lawyer and United Nations official. He has been the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights since October 2022.