Topic: Rights of Immigrants
Country: Lesotho
Delegate Name: Bryant Hepp
School: Kalamazoo Central High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Lesotho position papers GLIMUN 2012 committees
Due to an increasing amount of environmental and humanitarian crises, civil unrest, and political conflict, migration between developed and developing nations is becoming increasingly difficult to regulate. For many countries, it has become more of a challenge to exercise control over the borders that have traditionally marked the end of one state’s territory and the beginning of another’s. With the rise of globalism in this post-Cold War era, the necessity of these arbitrary barriers has diminished as well. It is critical for the United Nations to develop a plan on what is to be done about this dire and pressing issue.
Despite any wish to the contrary, each individual is now more than ever a citizen of the world, and not just their country of origin. With most of its domestic revenue consisting of remittances from the 4 million ethnic Basotho living in South Africa, the Kingdom of Lesotho implores its fellow nations to perceive the urgency of recognizing the right of immigrants to find work in their host country free of discrimination. The only way to provide a comprehensive and long-lasting solution to secure Lesotho’s economic sovereignty is to draft worldwide policy reform regarding migration and remittances between underdeveloped, developing, and developed nations. International standardization of a rational and comprehensive set of immigration procedures will not only allow hardworking immigrants the right to join their host country’s workforce; it will allow these countries to regulate the movements of terrorists, criminals, and other undesirable persons of interest across international borders through a globally recognized system.
Lesotho is the 3rd largest recipient of remittances as a share of GDP in the world; comprehensive, global immigration reform is not simply a wish—it is essential for the continued prosperity of the Basotho people. The welfare of Lesotho is tied to the unencumbered movements of migratory laborers, as is the welfare of the global economy. The nations of India, China, Mexico, and the Philippines each receive significant capital from remittances, and stand to benefit from the same migration reforms Lesotho urges all nations to embrace. It is time for each nation push to end discrimination based on country of origin, and to institute an effective, comprehensive policy to facilitate fair, just, and free migration between all countries of the world. The Kingdom of Lesotho firmly believes that every United Nations Member State is better than the nationalistic tendencies that have needlessly caused conflict and contention in the past, and that the nations on this committee will band together in response to this issue.
