Pushing border control activities outside of a state’s territory effectively turns border control into a set of transnational border practices analogous to the globalization of production whereby a firm’s manufacturing activities are moved abroad.  An individual state’s globalization of its border controls is limited to the kinds of data that states can unilaterally collect from inbound travellers and airlines.  

The Global Compact’s call for international cooperation to verify traveler identities and share traveler data dramatically increases the amount and quality of data available for analysis, improves all cooperating states’ inspection processes and furthers the globalization of border controls. 

Given that the Global Compact is non-binding, states may pursue intensified international cooperation to secure borders while simultaneously failing to take actions to improve the conditions of migrant workers, asylum seekers and refugees. Indeed, the Global Compact for Migration may lead to possible adverse consequences for the protection of those with well-founded fears of persecution.  

About the speaker

Rey Koslowski is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Master of International Affairs Program, Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, University at Albany, State University of New York (SUNY).  He has published extensively on international migration politics and policy, notably as author of Migrants and Citizens: Demographic Change in the European States System (Cornell University Press, 2000); Real Challenges for Virtual Borders: The Implementation of US-VISIT (Migration Policy Institute, June 2005; “Cooperation on Migration and Global Travel Security through Public Administration Reforms,” UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, February 2012; “International Travel Security and the Global Compacts on Refugees and Migration,” International Migration, December 2019; and “Drones and Border Control: An Examination of State and Non-State Actor use of UAVs along Borders,” Research Handbook on International Migration and Digital Technology, 2021. 

He is also co-editor of Global Human Smuggling: Comparative Perspectives, (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001) and editor of Global Mobility Regimes (Palgrave, 2011). Koslowski is widely quoted in the press, including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and International Herald Tribune. He has been interviewed by National Public Radio, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).