Respect for Human Rights is the Bridge between Migration and Development; "The UN High Level Dialogue is a moment of choice for the global community," ICMC Head of Advocacy John Bingham told the General Assembly, "an opportunity to choose the path from chaos to cohesion. On that path, human rights is the missing link-the bridge-between migration and development."

Mr. Bingham invited States to recognize that rights are practical as well as proper. "Rights are not the 'opposite' of practical," he said. "In fact, rights solve problems." He pointed to respect for 5 basic rights as especially effective in helping to solve migration-related problems: the right to life; the right to work and to be paid a fair wage; the right to movement, including out of and back to one's own country; the right to stay in one's own country-closely related to the right to development; and the right to participate actively in decisions that affect one's life, family and community.

"These rights are the key to coherence," he explained, "and help to solve a number of problems." For example, rights reduce the need for migration in the first place. Many people migrate because human rights are not respected in their own countries. Rights decrease the desperation that exposes so many millions of men, women and children to smuggling and human trafficking. Rights reduce irregular migration by offering legal ways to migrate and work that match international and individual needs. This in turn decreases the pressure migrants can feel to misuse asylum processes. Enforcement of rights shuts down shadow markets of hidden workers and off-the-books enterprises by decreasing the incentive for employers to seek and exploit workers who have no rights or are afraid to assert them. At the same time, a respect for rights also increases national security as well as pay-in to social security and tax systems in countries of employment, while enabling migrants to contribute in every way to the countries and communities they live in and come from, as full human beings.

Together with the member states, another 12 representatives of non-government organizations, labor unions and the private sector offered their reactions to the presentations. ICMC's perspective was described as "illuminating."

ICMC will continue to express the viewpoints of its worldwide network of 172 member organizations in the process leading up to and following the High Level Dialogue in September.