ABSTRACT
The International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families has had a difficult history. This chapter describes how that potential has been reflected in of the Convention, and in, how it has been carried forward in work of the Committee on Migrant Workers. It provides a detailed analysis of the work of the Committee on Migrant Workers to date. The chapter discusses the Committee's comments in four areas: personal status, access to labour law, trade union rights, and social provision for irregular migrants. It offers a broadly optimistic analysis of the Migrant Workers Convention as a source of standards for international migration. It started by arguing that criticisms of the Convention have for the most part been misplaced. The claim that the Convention unnecessarily duplicates provisions of other international human rights treaties underestimates the ways in which the Convention is coherent instrument for the protection of migrants as a category.
