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
Creating Perfect Immigrants: Guestworkers of the World in Historical Perspective 1
Peter Russell knew he had a hard day ahead of him as he surveyed the cane fields. This was not his first year harvesting sugar cane in Florida, and he understood with a glance that this field would be a particularly bad one. Had the stalks been standing upright, they would have been almost twice his height, but the wind had blown them over and the cane had grown bent and tangled. As usual, the cane was covered with black, sticky, sweet-smelling soot, left by fires set the previous day to burn the fields clear of leaves. He hoped the flames had also purged the fields of snakes and rats but there was no way to be sure. In Jamaica, Russell’s home country, a row of sugar cane was a row of sugar cane. But in Florida, where cane grew thicker and taller than almost anywhere else in the world, his job each day was to harvest a “cut row,” or two rows side-by-side, each two football fields in length. Once he severed the cane just above the ground with his cane-knife or “bill,” he had to cut off its leafy tops because they were low in sucrose and the leaves gummed up the machines. He would pile the cane and the “trash” neatly in separate heaps or a “pusher” might “check him out,” depriving him of a full day’s earnings. Failure to cut the cane close enough to the ground, thus wasting the part of the stalk where the sucrose was most concentrated, would also get him sent back to the barracks. If the pushers checked him out three times, the company would send him back to Jamaica. Walking to the start of a row, he cut a piece of cane in half and jammed the end of the cut piece into the ground. Skewering his time card onto the tip of the upright stalk, he began to work. Though on that day in 1968 Russell might have felt alone in a sea of sugar cane, there were, in fact, many others like him. In the U.S. in the 1960s, some 15,000 other “H2 workers” from the British West Indies, most of them Jamaicans, came annually to American fields on temporary, no-strike contracts. Today, there are 40,000 mostly Mexican temporary contract workers (now called “H2-A workers”) in the U.S. annu-
Labour migration in the Arab Gulf states: patterns, trends and prospects.

 This paper presents an analysis of recent changes in the scale and characteristics of non-national migration to, and employment in, the 6 Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states. In 1985, the size of the workforce in the Gulf States was 7.1 million. Non-nationals comprised 68% (in Saudi Arabia) to almost 91% (in United Arab Emirates) of the workforce. 63% of the non-nationals were from Asia. Non-national Arab workers represented 30% of the total. In 1985, 36% of all migrant workers came from India and Pakistan. Almost 30% of the non-nationals were employed in services (financial, personal, and community), and almost 29% were in construction. Non-nationals dominate 3 sectors: construction, manufacturing, and utilities. Non-nationals account for a relatively low 55% of the oil sector. The phenomenal rate of growth in non-national workforces during the mid 1970s began to slow in the 1980s. Labor permit issues peaked in the late 1970s and again in 1983-84. The timing and scale of the decline varies by sending country and by destination, reflecting variations in the rate and extent of the economic slowdown in different GCC states, as well as relative wage rates, occupational composition, and organization of the various labor flows. For example, Indian case worker placements fell by 49% between 1983 and 1986, while the number of Filipinos placed fell by 15%. During the 1980s, most Gulf states have increased efforts to enforce labor and residence regulations, but the number of illegal workers has continued to grow. During the 1st half of the 1980s, demand for non-national labor increasingly turned towards new supplies in South and Southeast Asia, notably Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines. Meanwhile, an increasing share of Arab and South Asian workers were renewing their work permits, often on less favorable terms. The construction sector has had the greatest decline in new labor inflows; however, the service sector is still growing. Wage rates have fallen an average of 20-30%, and up to 45% since 1983. Since 1985, about 615,000 non-national workers have left. Southeast Asian labor has been most acutely affected by the sharp downturn in economic activity. By 1990, the non-national workforce should decline to 4.36 million, but then it will increase slowly. The number and share of Southeast Asians will rise.
