External ambition, internal tensions: the EU's justice contribution to the Global Compact for Migration

The work unpacks the Global Compact for Migration process into different phases: its launch, the phase of consultation and negotiation and the adoption of the document on the safe, orderly and regular movement of migrants. Each phase provides insights into the EU’s intended aims and its internal dynamics affecting the different stages of discussion. That is, the work acknowledges the foreign policy of the EU as buttressed by dynamics not so dissimilar to those described by Robert Putnam (1988 ), whereby policymakers move between games being played at different levels (national and international). By emphasizing this double dynamic, the chapter shows how the EU’s internal challenges exerted a major role in weakening the contributions regarding justice that it could have provided.