Multilateral approaches to managing migration
One of the most contentious issues in international relations is the extent to which independent states agree to relinquish certain powers to control the admission of foreign nationals into their territories and to dictate the terms and conditions of their stay. The general resistance of states to yield autonomy over immigration matters is reflected in what has been referred to as the “thin layer of formal multilateralism” in the governance of migration (Betts 2010). In this essay we review the status of multilateralism in the management of migration. In the Report of the World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization at the ILO, co-chaired by Tarja Holonen, president of the Republic of Finland and Benjamin William Mkapa, president of the United Republic of Tanzania at the International Labour Organisation in February 2004, the protection of migrants was established as a crucial necessity: 
 
 
Keywords: 
 
Geneva Conventions; 
human trafficking; 
international agencies; 
international law; 
political economy
Repoliticizing international migration narratives? Critical reflections on the Civil Society Days of the Global Forum on Migration and Development
ABSTRACT This paper draws on Pécoud’s international migration narratives (IMN) as an analytical framework to examine the Global Forum on Migration and Development’s Civil Society Days (GFMD-CSD). We analyse the narratives both produced and challenged at the GFMD-CSD, suggesting that while the GFMD-CSD poses a gentle challenge to existing IMN, it falls short of meaningfully (re)politicizing predominant migration paradigms. This is partly due to how the forum is a fraught space that reflects and reproduces uneven power dynamics between the Global North and South, concealing and nullifying contestations of power. Nonetheless, the GFMD-CSD, as a hybridized, experimental and fluidly defined discourse-led ‘global’ space, still functions as an important arena through which challenges to depoliticized state-led rhetoric might slowly trickle. Therefore, a closer interpretation of self-reflexive GFMD-CSD civil society strategies might challenge Pécoud’s conceptualization of what constitutes a ‘depoliticized’ approach to migration.
Did the metamorphosis from Export Processing Zones to Special Economic Zones improve the efficiency of trade enclaves in India?
In this paper, the efficiency of seven conventional Special Economic Zones in India is analyzed, by adopting a stochastic production frontier technique, for the period between 1986–1987 and 2007–2008.Results indicate that although the efficiency scores of these enclaves have improved over the years, specifically with the introduction of the SEZ policy (2000–2001), it is far below the threshold level as identified in the literature. Besides, one can also observe a discrepancy emerging between better export earning zones and efficient zones. On the determinants side, policy intervention and large geographical area, accompanied by clustering of units, are found to have impacted the efficiency scores of these enclaves positively.