Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war, Lebanese policymakers have echoed a common refrain also self-evident among the public: coping with the presence of some 1.5 million Syrian refugees is a struggle. Lebanon implemented a few measures to stanch the flow and decrease the number of refugees, such as closing the border in October 2014 and encouraging Syrians to return home, yet it also recently voted in favor of two landmark UN resolutions supporting the rights of migrants and refugees.

The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) and the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR), adopted Dec. 10 and 17, respectively, were the result of 18 months of international negotiations following the UN General Assembly's adoption of the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants in September 2016. Inspired largely by the Syrian refugee crisis, the compacts serve to standardize best practices among the world’s nations in dealing with migration flows. The provisions, however, are nonbinding.

Hadi Hachem, chief of cabinet for the Lebanese foreign minister, whose office has been working to define Lebanon’s position toward the compacts, told Al-Monitor that Lebanon’s approval was rooted in its support of the Lebanese diaspora.

“The GCM is a universal declaration, and Lebanon is a country that has 14 million Lebanese abroad, so we are interested in migration because we are a country where we export migration,” said Hachem. “We want to give a legal frame for migration movements.”