Leave no one behind: Making the ‘shared values of human dignity’ in International Law Central to achieving the SDGs agenda in relation to migrants in the global tropics

The global migration crisis, driven mainly by armed conflicts and human rights abuses in the world, is wreaking havoc on the ‘leave no one behind’ (LNOB) transformative promise of the UN Agenda 2030, thus raising questions whether the crisis is beyond the sustainable development goals’ (SDGs’) reach and states’ political will to achieve them. One common feature of this crisis is the constant ripping apart of the ‘shared values of human dignity’—power, enlightenment, wellbeing, wealth, skills, affection, respect and rectitude—the very foundational values upon which the SDGs should stand. In relation to the protection of migrants, these values are rarely upheld, an indication that the SDGs’ promise to reduce injustices in the world by 2030 may be falling through the cracks. Previous research in human rights and migration has focused narrowly on the doctrinal relationship between human dignity and the SDGs Agenda, overlooking both wider and non-doctrinal ways in which the shared values of human dignity distinctively bear on the responsibility of states to fulfil the LNOB pledge in relation to migrants. Through reference to three key cases of forcibly displaced migrants in the global tropics: one in Asia (Rohingya migrants fleeing persecution in Myanmar), another in Central America (the migrant caravan at the US-Mexico border), and the last one in the Horn of Africa (South Sudan and Somalia migrants moving through sea routes in an attempt to reach Europe and the UK), this article addresses this gap in the literature by providing a more nuanced account of where and how we might engage these shared values of human dignity when assessing the responsibility of states to fulfil the LNOB pledge in relation to people caught up in forced migration, regardless of whether they are labelled migrants or refugees. The article argues that states’ substantially achieving the LNOB pledge would require an SDGs implementation framework premised on shared values of human dignity.