ABSTRACT
In legal, normative, and institutional terms, refugees and international migrants comprise quite distinct categories. There is a widely ratified international convention on refugees that defines clearly who refugees are, provides a legal and normative framework for protecting and assisting them, and that forms the basis of the mandate for a specific United Nations organization devoted to refugees. This chapter explains the history and development of the three types of framework for refugees and migrants, namely, legal, normative, and institutional frameworks. It analyzes current debates pertaining to the refugee and migration regimes. The most prominent international agency working on international migration is the International Organization for Migration, which became a "related organization" of the UN after the September 2016 UN decision. The chapter explores the emerging issues, with a particular focus on climate change, before briefly concluding by considering prospects for a more formal union between the refugee and migration regimes.
