Migration Policy Practice welcomes the opportunity to publish a selection of some of the most noteworthy papers discussed at the 13th plenary meeting of the Transatlantic Council on Migration. The meeting examined the realities of the current global protection system and set out to identify gaps and opportunities for change. It considered how governments and stakeholders can cooperate to address existing crises, distribute responsibilities more fairly, create more flexible systems that respond to changing realities and prevent new displacement from becoming protracted.

The selection of papers included in this issue of Migration Policy Practice includes articles by: T. Alexander Aleinikoff, on the difficulties of applying the relief-to-development concept in situations of long-term displacement; Kathleen Newland, on the main current sources of strain on the existing system of refugee protection, and on possible avenues for strengthening the system; Roger Zetter, on the need to reinforce and transcend the well-established legal and normative frameworks of protection, and to reframe our understanding of the concepts of forced migration and protection; and Katy Long, on the extent to which labour migration is being used – or could be used in the future – to strengthen the international refugee protection regime and facilitate durable solutions for refugees.

The second set of articles in this edition of Migration Policy Practice focuses more directly on issues of irregular migration and remittances. This includes articles by: Arezo Malakooti, who examines the recent dynamics of migration flows across the Mediterranean by looking at the Western Mediterranean and Central Mediterranean routes; Sandra Paola Alvarez, Pascal Briod, Olivier Ferrari and Ulrike Rieder, who discuss issues related to estimations of aggregate volumes of remittances, bilateral remittances and remittance transfer costs; Nassim Majidi, who reports on IOM’s activities to raise awareness about the risks and consequences of irregular migration from Somaliland; and Tara Brian, who provides a snapshot of current migration trends in the Mediterranean based on IOM’s latest data.

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