15 March 2017
Thee long anticipated Report of the Special Representative of the Secretary General on Migration, (also known as “the Sutherland Report”) was released in February 2017.
The report presents 16 detailed recommendations for States to advance the global migration agenda, touches on the expansion of legal pathways for people fleeing countries in crisis, migrants' financial inclusion and reduction of recruitment costs, access to data for facts-based migration policies, the need to re-examine approaches to return and reintegration, and multi-actor engagement of civil society in all processes and decision-making, especially migrants, refugees and the diaspora themselves.
Notably, Mr. Sutherland’s report makes a strong case for the shared interest that states, the system of international and regional agencies and processes, civil society and the private sector have in doing the right thing—and, as it has been said, doing “the rights thing”.
This was the final report of Peter Sutherland in his capacity as Special Representative on Migration, a role he served in for more than 11 years, from January 2006 to March 2017. On 9 March 2017, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres announced the appointment of Louise Arbour as his Special Representative for International Migration. In recent years, Mrs. Arbour served as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
