Measuring the Baseline: How States Hosting the Majority of the World’s Migrants Protect Rights Implicated in the Global Compact

States have made principled commitments to facilitate migration and protect the human rights of migrants as part of a broader, multilateral reorientation in relation to how States should respond to human mobility. In the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM), States expressly noted that “[b]y implementing the Global Compact, [States would] ensure effective respect, protection and fulfilment of the human rights of all migrants, regardless of their migration status, across all stages of the migration cycle.”1 States committed, in the GCM’s Objective 1, to the collection and use of accurate and disaggregated data as a basis for evidence-based policies.2 The most recent version of the draft Progress Declaration to be considered at the International Migration Review Forum (REV4) notes the continued inadequacy of data, particularly disaggregated data on migration; indeed, States are poised to call on the United Nations Secretary- General to develop, “a limited set of indicators . . . to assist Member States, upon their request, in conducting inclusive reviews of progress related to the implementation of the Global Compact.”3 States and institutions contributing to the implementation of the GCM and growth of more coordinated migration governance require a more concrete and complete understanding of the legal landscape as it is applied by member States before they can effectively promote a more orderly, just, and cooperative world system. With such an understanding, national governments will have an evidence base for future policy-making. The MRD contributes rigorous indicators which permit aggregation, disaggregation, and an objective system of benchmarking as States.