The fence around the Spanish enclave of Melilla in 2006. Sara Prestianni for Noborder Network/Flickr. (CC 2.0 by)
Cameron Thibos (oD): Let's start with what has happened so far. In short, global compacts for migrants and refugees are being developed as a result of the UN Summit in 2016 and the New York Declaration that came out of that. What happened there, and why didn’t the compacts come out immediately as some reports suggested would happen?
Sarnata Reynolds: In the summer when it all went into negotiations, there was supposed to be a global compact on refugees done – ready to sign – by the end of the summer. The negotiation process for the global compact on migration was always about, 'what's the roadmap?' The negotiations themselves, however, ended up being crazy. There was a huge, strong, organised and impressive contingency of member states that wanted as strong a language as they could get on a roadmap on migration.
