International Migrants Bill of Rights Initiative
The Human Rights Institute (HRI) works with the International Migrants Bill of Rights (IMBR) Initiative, a transnational network of scholars, practitioners, and students, based at Georgetown, whose mission is to advocate for the protection of the human rights of all migrants through promoting understanding and acceptance of the IMBR, a legal document developed by the Initiative.
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The movement and the rights of people crossing borders around the world are inadequately governed and incompletely protected by a fragmented patchwork of international institutions and norms. In response, the International Migrants Bill of Rights (IMBR) contributes a comprehensive, coherent articulation of the legal framework that protects the rights of all international migrants, regardless of the impetus of their migration.
Based at Georgetown University Law Center, the IMBR Initiative, and its growing global Network, contributes to important, ongoing debates about the way the world views and treats people who cross borders. Accessible yet substantiated by extensive legal research, the IMBR promotes the normative foundation for human rights protections at multiple levels of supranational migration governance. Because norms and governance mutually reinforce one another, strengthening one – through the IMBR and the work of the IMBR Initiative – stands to increase the effectiveness of the other.
The Initiative pursues this work using tools developed by an international network of students and scholars in consultation with migrants, civil society, policymakers and regional and international organizations. The resulting products feature:
- a Bill of Rights, which articulates the rights protecting all migrants and distinguishes between existing international law and progressive developments in law and practice;
- the Principles on which the IMBR’s human rights are founded;
- legal Commentaries that corroborate the enumerated rights and principles;
- a Handbook to guide the promotion and implementation of the IMBR;
- a set of Indicators for researchers to benchmark legal protections in countries; and
- other Research and Publications.