Franco–African Pacts on Migration: Bilateralism Revisited in Multilayered Migration Governance

Introduction

At the international level, responsibility for managing both regular and irregular migratory flows has been described as 'diffused within the UN system' (GCIM 2005: 63; Aleinikoff 2007: 467; Straubhaar 2003: 110; Ghosh 2003: 6). Nascent international soft law on migration, particularly the common understandings of the Global Commission on International Migration (GCIM), the guidelines of the International Agenda on Migration management and the resolutions of the UN High-level Dialogue on migration and development acknowledge the limited mandates of the international system (Betts, Trachtman in this vollume). To substitute for the 'missing regime' (Hollifield 2003) or to increase coherence among the normative fragments of a regime, perceived as 'substance without architecture' (Aleinikoff 2007: 467) soft law instruments have been pushing for partnerships between host and source countries and thus have encouraged bilateralism as a migration teering stool. [...]