Promoting and Protecting the Rights of Migrant Workers The Role of National Human Rights Institutions KEY POINTS: CHAPTER 2 • The Convention sets out a broad series of rights belonging to all migrant workers and members of their families, irrespective of their migration status. Many of these rights restate those included in the core human rights treaties. • The Convention includes protections that respond to the specific situations that migrant workers and members of their families can experience, especially those which can leave them vulnerable to exploitation or human rights violations. • Documented migrant workers and members of their families have specific rights under the Convention, in addition to those which apply to all migrant workers. • States of origin and destination have specific obligations to respect, protect and fulfil the rights of migrant workers and members of their families. • The Convention establishes a treaty body to review reports prepared by States on their compliance with the Convention and to make recommendations to encourage further action by States. Individuals will be able bring complaints of human rights violations to the treaty body once a sufficient number of States have accepted this procedure. FURTHER READING Achieving Dignity: Campaigner’s Handbook for the Migrants Rights Convention; International Migrants Rights Watch Committee; 1998 Guide on Ratification: International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families; International Steering Committee for the Global Campaign for Ratification of the Convention on Rights of Migrants; 2010 Migration and Human Rights: The United Nations Convention on Migrant Worker Rights; Ryszard Cholewinski, Paul de Guchteneire and Antoine Pécoud (ed), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization / Cambridge University Press; 2009 Special Issue: U.N. International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families; International Migration Review 1991 (Vol. 25, No. 94); Center for Migration Studies of New York Strengthening Protection of Migrant Workers and their Families with International Human Rights Treaties: A Do-it-yourself Kit; Mariette Grange, International Catholic Migration Commission; 2006 The International Convention on Migrant Workers and its Committee: Fact Sheet No. 24 (Rev.1); OHCHR; 2005 22 | Chapter 2: The International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families