The UN Global Compacts are legally non-binding. Yet they represent the commitment of states to collectively address globalized and sometimes unstable flows of migrants and refugees. Building on this consensus, international organizations engaged in setting up new organizational forms to implement the Compacts. Thus, they effectively coordinate, channel and monitor states' efforts to fulfil their commitments by organising the Global Refugee Forum and International Migration Review Forum, drafting reports to the UN General Assembly and the UN Secretary General, and setting up an Indicator Framework to monitor success and a Multi-Partner Trust Fund. But one striking feature of these organizational forms lies in their open-ended character as the Compacts are not explicitly bound by an expiry date. This begs the question of their potential permanence and the role of international organizations in their implementation.
However, the Compacts do not only allow international organizations to create new and potentially lasting organizational forms. Some international organizations attempt through their involvement in the Compacts’ implementation to expand their autonomy and reinforce their authority vis-à-vis states. This is notably the case of the IOM whose commitment to promote and safeguard the Global Compact for Migration could provide it with the moral authority to avoid being reduced to the role of a mere service provider for the states. Moreover, the compacts left much room for ambiguity regarding the governance of mixed migration and the role of the IOM and the UNHCR therein. As these international organizations attempt to clarify such ambiguity, they are faced with the option of either cooperating or expanding their autonomy at the expense of one another.
By examining the many ways international organizations leverage the UN Global Compacts, this research project would be able to scrutinize the possible emergence of a coherent global migration and refugee governance regime.