Promoting and Protecting the Rights of Migrant Workers The Role of National Human Rights Institutions • Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others • Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. • United Nations Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices similar to Slavery. The core international human rights treaties are additional tools that NHRIs can draw on to address human rights violations and discrimination experienced by migrant workers, especially: • International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights • International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights • International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination • Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women • Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment • Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture • Convention on the Rights of the Child • Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.178 NHRIs should identify whether their Government has ratified these human rights treaties and, if so, whether it has entered reservations179 in relation to particular provisions. They can lobby their Government to respect, protect and fulfil these core human rights standards or, where relevant, to remove reservations. NHRIs should also review their Government’s position on any relevant regional treaties and make recommendations to promote compliance with the human rights standards that have been established. For example, the ASEAN Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers places obligations on countries of origin and destination in the ASEAN region to take specific steps to promote the full potential and dignity of migrant workers. NHRIs in ASEAN countries can work to promote awareness and adherence to the standards set out in the Declaration. For example, they can monitor its implementation in practice, draw the attention of Government and other stakeholders to areas of non-compliance and provide recommendations for reform of relevant laws and policy, as well as areas of operational practice that can be improved. 4. PROMOTING REFORMS TO DOMESTIC LAW AND POLICY The participating NHRIs agreed to commit themselves to: Play a role in the development of national legislation aiming at the protection of the rights of migrants and refugees, and call upon states to harmonize their national legislation with international human rights standards … Rabat Declaration180 178 Even if not domestically implemented, international standards can have an indirect impact on domestic law, as the norms and standards can be used by the judiciary in construing ambiguous provisions of legislation. NHRIs can play a strategic role in advising the court (i.e. as amicus curiae or “friend of the court”) of relevant and applicable human rights standards. 179 A reservation is defined as “a unilateral statement… made by a State, when signing, ratifying, accepting, approving or acceding to a treaty, whereby it purports to exclude or to modify the legal effect of certain provisions of the treaty in their application to that State”: Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, 1969; 1155 UNTS 331; article 2(1)(d). Note also that article 19 of the Vienna Convention provides that a State may make a reservation unless it is prohibited by the treaty or it is incompatible with the object and purpose of that treaty. 180 Rabat Declaration on Migration and Human Rights; 3rd Arab-European NHRIs’ Dialogue on Migration and Human Rights; Rabat, Morocco; 6–8 May 2008. 72 | Chapter 6: Promoting reform of law, policy and practice