'The' or 'A' Leading Organisation in Migration? IOM as an Actor in Global Migration Governance

The emerging global governance of migration is characterized by its fragmentation in terms of institutions, underlying norms and conventions. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) holds a peculiar place within this framework: On the one side, it has been situated outside the United Nations System until very recently, considers itself a “non-normative” agency and has mostly acted as a profit-based service provider for nation states. On the other side, IOM has been instrumental in establishing influential norms such as “migration management”, it has been lauded “a leading agency on migration” by the UN and its member states and finally has moved closer to the UN system as a “related organisation” in September 2016. However, the opposition to the original suggestion of calling IOM “the leading agency on migration” highlights beyond mere semantics that the role of the organisation is still nor clearly defined and remains contested. This contribution aims to analyse the actorness IOM has achieved in global migration governance, the strategies employed and in particular its role in contributing to the development of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration. The findings are based on comprehensive document analysis, interviews and participant observation in global fora such as the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD – all meetings since 2008), the UN High-Level Dialogue on Migration and Development (UN-HLD 2013) and the “migration week” 2018 in Marrakesh, including the Intergovernmental Conference on the Global Compact for Migration.