United Nations Human Rights Council

BACKGROUND GUIDE

Vancouver Model United Nations

The Twentieth Annual Session | January 29–31, 2021

Dear Delegates,
William Tsai

Secretary-General

My name is Nick Liu, and I am thrilled to serve as your Director at UNHRC at VMUN 2021. Alongside myself are Rafeeq Kassam-Jiwani, your Chair, and Katrina Sun, your Assistant Director, who are both juniors at West Point Grey Academy. All three of us on the staff team are looking forward to a weekend filled with thoughtful discourse, intense debate, and memorable moments.
Vivian Gu

Director-General

I am currently a senior student at Fraser Heights Secondary School, and I have been immersed in the Model United Nations community ever since I entered high school. I often think back to why I fell in love with MUN: the committees filled with young diplomatic minds, sparks of clashing debate, and midnight crises filled with betrayals and surprises. Albeit cliché, my career would not be worth it if not for the close friends forged from the occasional late-night rants and countless embarrassing moments.
Derek Wu

Chief of Staff

Tyler Rosenzweig

Director of Logistics

I am sure each delegate is familiar with the difficulties that COVID-19 has brought the past year; however, that has not changed the value Model United Nations possesses in training public speaking and diplomacy skills. In light of those challenges, I implore you to take this year’s online conference as an opportunity to research more about the unprecedented and unexpected situations that can affect the human rights of migrant workers and whistleblowers.
Joyce Chen

USG General Assemblies

Ethan Jasny

USG Specialized Agencies

If you have any concerns or questions leading up to the conference, please do not hesitate to contact either myself or one of my fellow Dais members via email at [email protected]. The Dais team is beyond ecstatic to welcome you to the United Nations Human Rights Council at VMUN 2021.
Vivian Liang

USG Conference

Jonah Ezekiel

USG Finance

With warm regards,
Laura Choi

USG Communications

Nick Liu UNHRC Director

Armaan Jaffer

USG Delegate Affairs

Mia Tsao

USG Delegate Affairs

Position Paper Policy

What is a Position Paper?

A position paper is a brief overview of a country’s stance on the topics being discussed by a particular committee. Though there is no specific format the position paper must follow, it should include a description of your positions your country holds on the issues on the agenda, relevant actions that your country has taken, and potential solutions that your country would support.

At Vancouver Model United Nations, delegates should write a position paper for each of the committee’s topics. Each position paper should not exceed one page, and should all be combined into a single document per delegate.

For the United Nations Human Rights Council, position papers are not mandatory but highly recommended, especially for a delegate to be considered for an award.

Formatting

Position papers should: — Include the name of the delegate, his/her country, and the committee — Be in a standard font (e.g. Times New Roman) with a 12-point font size and 1-inch document margins — Not include illustrations, diagrams, decorations, national symbols, watermarks, or page borders — Include citations and a bibliography, in any format, giving due credit to the sources used in research (not included in the 1-page limit)

Due Dates and Submission Procedure

Position papers for this committee must be submitted by midnight on January 22nd, 2021. Once your position paper is complete, please save the file as your last name, your first name and send it as an attachment in an email, to your committee’s email address, with the subject heading as your last name, your first name — Position Paper. Please do not add any other attachments to the email or write anything else in the body.

Both your position papers should be combined into a single PDF or Word document file; position papers submitted in another format will not be accepted.

Each position paper will be manually reviewed and considered for the Best Position Paper award. The email address for this committee is [email protected].

Human Rights of Migrant Workers.............................................................................................. 3

Overview...................................................................................................................................................3 Timeline....................................................................................................................................................4 Historical Analysis ..................................................................................................................................6

Case Study: South Africa...................................................................................................................................6 Case Study: Post-World War II .......................................................................................................................7 Case Study: Persian Gulf...................................................................................................................................8

Past UN/International Involvemen t .....................................................................................................8

Current Situation ................................................................................................................................. 11

Possible Solutions and Controversies................................................................................................ 14

Bloc Positions........................................................................................................................................ 16

Migrant-Receiving Countries........................................................................................................................ 17 Migrant-Sending Countries .......................................................................................................................... 18

Discussion Questions........................................................................................................................... 19 Bibliography.......................................................................................................................................... 20

Vancouver Model United Nations 2021

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Strengthening Whistleblower Protection Policies ..................................................................... 24

Regional Convention s .................................................................................................................................... 29 UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crim e ....................................................................... 30 UN Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC)........................................................................................ 30

Current Situation ................................................................................................................................. 30

Technology and Social Media ....................................................................................................................... 31 Case Study: Transnational Scandal s ............................................................................................................. 32 Case Study: Anonymous Trump-Ukraine Whistleblowe r ........................................................................ 33

Possible Solutions and Controversies................................................................................................ 33

International Protection and Reporting Mechanism s ............................................................................... 33 Protection from Discrimination and Criminal Prosecution..................................................................... 34 Performance Review s ..................................................................................................................................... 35

Bloc Positions........................................................................................................................................ 35

Discussion Questions........................................................................................................................... 37 Additional Resource s ........................................................................................................................... 38 Bibliography.......................................................................................................................................... 39

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Human Rights of Migrant Workers

Overview

For centuries, humans have migrated from their homelands in search of a better life, whether it be to find economic opportunities and security (known as the pull factor), or to flee their current hostile situation because of war, violence, persecution, and climate change (known as the push factor). The United Nations defines a migrant worker as “a person who is engaged or has been engaged in a remunerated activity in a State of which he or she is not a national.”¹In 2019, there were an estimated 164 million migrant workers worldwide.²Most of these are legal migrant workers with temporary status and limited rights, but this figure also includes estimates of workers who do not have legal status, yet still perform essential jobs, often in domestic or health care help.³Major hubs for migrant workers include the Arab states, countries in the European Union, and the United States.⁴

Migrant workers make up almost 5 percent of the workforce in migrant-receiving countries, making their economic contributions—particularly in unskilled or low wage sectors—significant to these countries’ economies.⁵In addition, low and middle-income migrant-sending countries rely on remittances sent back home from workers abroad, which, in 2019, reached approximately USD 551 billion in value worldwide.⁶

Although international migrant workers are essential to most world economies, they are often granted limited rights in the country they work in. Migrant families frequently inhabit hostile living environments with limited access to healthcare and are often subjected to discrimination and xenophobia. They are also routinely threatened with deportation if they do not cooperate with their employers, making human rights abuses in the workplace nearly inevitable.

Conversely, granting migrant workers the same rights as citizens would result in many migrant-receiving nations limiting the number of workers allowed entrance into their country.⁷This is because the economic and political cost of extending benefits to non-nationals is deleterious to the nation, whether it be the high price of providing

¹“International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers.” OHCHR, December 18, 1990, https://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CMW.aspx.

²Natalia Popova and Mustafa Hakki Özel, ILO Global Estimates on International Migrant Workers: Results and Methodology,

Geneva: International Labour Office, 2018, https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/--- publ/documents/publication/wcms_652001.pdf.

³Victoria Castillo Rueda, Women migrant workers’ labour market situation in West Africa, Geneva: International Labour

Organization, 2020, https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/--- publ/documents/publication/wcms_652001.pdf. ⁴Popova and Özel, “ILO Global Estimates on International Migrant Workers: Results and Methodology.” ⁵Ibid. ⁶Dilip Ratha, “Data Release: Remittances to Low- and Middle-Income Countries on Track to Reach $551 Billion in 2019 and $597 Billion by 2021,” World Bank Blogs, October 16, 2019, https://blogs.worldbank.org/peoplemove/data-release-remittances-low-and- middle-income-countries-track-reach-551-billion-2019. ⁷Martin Ruhs, “Less Is More When It Comes to Migrant Rights,” The Conversation, October 2, 2013, https://theconversation.com/less-is-more-when-it-comes-to-migrant-rights-18811.

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healthcare, safe housing and social services to the workers or the provocation of anti-immigrant sentiment and xenophobia amongst its citizens. Furthermore, restricting admittance into migrant-receiving countries is disadvantageous to the migrant workers and migrant-sending countries, as it denies employment opportunities for workers and impacts the amount of remittances transferred back to the origin countries.

The main protection for migrant workers to ensure basic human rights is the 1990 UN Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families, which is currently signed by 55 countries. Article 7 of the Convention protects these rights regardless of "sex, race, color, language, religion or conviction, political or other opinion, national, ethnic or social origin, nationality, age, economic position, property, marital status, birth, or other status." ⁸However, this Convention has been signed by almost no migrant-receiving countries, thus limiting its impact and effectiveness.⁹

The principal debate of this committee must be focused on how to ensure basic human rights for migrant workers while understanding the political, social and economic consequences to both migrant-receiving and migrant-sending countries. While the 1990 UN Convention establishes a framework for human rights of migrant workers, the UNHRC has a duty to further promote and protect these rights.

Timeline

1600s-1800s — The African slave trade—the largest mass forced labour migration in history—takes place. Colonial powers forcibly remove people from their homes and bring them to work, without remuneration and without freedom, in the plantations of the New World.¹⁰

1834-1917 — Early migrant workers are bound by labour contracts to British colonists. Indentured labour is little better than slavery and is characterized by poor working conditions, extremely low wages, and untenable hours. The majority of the labourers migrate from China and India.¹¹

1840s-1900 — Migrant workers from all parts of southern Africa are recruited by settler colonialists to work in the diamond and gold mines. Workers are forced to live in cramped and isolated living quarters, separated from the white urban areas.¹²

1919 — The International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Constitution of 1919 calls for the “protection of the interests of workers when employed in countries other than their own.” ¹³This is the first time that an international organization recognizes the rights of migrant workers.

⁸OHCHR, "International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers.” ⁹Antoine Pécoud, “The Politics of the UN Convention on Migrant Workers’ Rights,” Groningen Journal of International Law, 5, no. 1 (January 2017): pp. 57-72, https://doi.org/10.21827/59db6983b848b. ¹⁰“A History of migration,” Striking Women, n.d., https://www.striking-women.org/module/migration/history-migration. ¹¹Ibid. ¹²Janice Fine, “Migration and Migrant Workers in the Post-Apartheid Era,” Global Labour Journal 5, no.3 (2014), https://mulpress.mcmaster.ca/globallabour/article/view/2281/2295. ¹³“Fair Migration Agenda (Labour Migration),” International Labour Organization, n.d., https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/labour-migration/fair-migration-agenda/lang--en/index.htm.