ON MIGRATION
INTRODUCTORY PARAGRAPH
Migration has constituted a persistent element of diplomatic relations throughout history, shaping political, economic, and cultural exchanges among states. In recent years, however, the rise of far-right movements has intensified political resistance to migration, leading many governments to adopt restrictive border policies. Such measures stand in tension with the dynamics of globalization and have contributed to humanitarian crises and widespread human-rights violations. The erosion of historical awareness and multilateral norms further undermines cooperative principles and democratic institutions. Against this backdrop, multilateral diplomacy remains essential to managing migration flows while reconciling state sovereignty with international responsibility.
FOUR CENTRAL PARAGRAPHS
While post-World War II labor needs have initiated some movement, the 1970s have marked a sustained shift in migration trends. Liberalization policies and the rise of new economic powers in the 1990s and 2000s have shifted global migration dynamics. Between 2013 and 2017, we witnessed a rapid increase in refugee flows in Europe, with an average increase of two million per year, driven by the humanitarian crisis and conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan, and some regions of Africa. A peak period of migration happened in 2015 and 2016, as exemplified by Germany hosting over a million refugees, mostly from the Middle East. In 2024, the United States recorded nearly three million immigrants crossing the border. While Global South-South migration has been significant, Global South to Global North migration has dominated, driven by international economic adjustments and humanitarian crises, and it has contributed to a growing number of migrants moving to more central economies.
The Global North has received migrants from the Global South in forced migration, which is a movement of individuals or groups away from their homes, driven by threats like armed conflict, persecution, violence, or natural disasters. Unlike voluntary displacement, forced migration is a response to urgent needs for safety and survival. The causes of forced migration include political, religious, or ethnic persecution, war, and environmental disasters. As of mid-2025, more than one hundred and seventeen million people, including sixty-seven million internally displaced within their own countries, were forcibly displaced worldwide. Approximately forty-two million refugees need international protection. Sub-Saharan Africa accounted for a substantial share of this population, with significant displacement in the Sahel region. More than one-third of all globally displaced people come from just four countries: Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan, and Ukraine. As the North Global responds to humanitarian crises, the management of these movements has enabled the coexistence of multicultural, multiracial, and multireligious groups.
However, centuries of imperialism, slave or arduous, poorly paid work have previously shaped the international relations between the Global North and the Global South. European countries led the African slave trade into their South American colonies. With this labor force, these last ones, in turn, have provided basic inputs to European industrial expansion. Decolonization has left the Global South in even more disadvantaged conditions. Unable to fund its industry, South America, for example, had to borrow at high interest rates from banks in the Global North to begin its late industrialization. China, although never officially a colony, has suffered intense exploitation by the United Kingdom, Japan, France, and Germany, all of which divided the country into zones of influence, thereby eroding its economic and territorial sovereignty. Chinese immigration to the United States was severely restricted by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which barred most laborers while permitting merchants, diplomats, and students. Despite this, around one hundred and seventy thousand Chinese immigrants passed through the Angel Island Immigration Station to the West Coast, facing intense racism, discrimination, and violence. As most world maps depict, the Global North has been viewed as above the Global South.
Since Mr. Trump resumed the presidency in January 2025, the world has watched scenes of violence and extremism in the United States, this time to put into effect an all-at-once massive deportation to the Global South. The action has spread the perception that it has an ethnic basis, since the Immigration and Customs Enforcement has targeted the Latin or African-looking population, some of whom have later found to be American citizens. Contradictory, in January 2026, in Davos, Switzerland, Mr. Trump formally ratified the Charter of the Board of Peace, establishing himself as Chairman of an international organization focused on rebuilding Gaza. Mr. Trump prioritizes his presidential diplomacy at the expense of truly multilateral negotiations. Furthermore, diplomatic history has shown that the so-called “treaties of peace” with individualistic goals and perspectives, imposed on some and accompanied by lists of reparations to be fulfilled, have led to global recession and to another massive war. The 1919 Treaty of Versailles exemplifies this. On the contrary, cultural coexistence and trust-building summarize the role of diplomacy in reconstructing and deepening foreign partnerships.
MALUH DE FELICE