This chapter assesses the impact of the 2013 UN Human Rights Due Diligence Policy (HRDDP) and the 2016 IOM-UN agreement on the IOM’s relationship to human rights protection. In doing so, it contextualizes the ongoing debate of the organization’s normative framework, (controversial) human rights practices and relationship to the UN. The authors argue that by signing the 2016 UN-IOM agreement, the IOM is indirectly bound by the principles underlying the HRDDP as far as it cannot act against its core norms. At the same time, the article argues that given the policy’s limitations, one should not put too much hope into the applicability of the HRDDDP to the IOM. This is because it only aims at preventing “grave violations” of human rights in specific contexts. Therefore, the chapter concludes with some suggestions on how the HRDDP could be reformed in light of the IOM’s new relation with the UN to protect human rights more effectively.

The present volume contributes to the emerging field of comparative foreign relations law by focusing on how foreign relations law interacts with international law, a topic that has been underexplored in the literature. This concluding chapter reflects on the relationship between these two bodies of law, drawing on examples from this volume and also from The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Foreign Relations Law. It begins by offering a working definition of foreign relations law that is both analytically distinct from international law and useful for comparative analysis. It then explains how foreign relations law and international law have important and often under-appreciated effects on each other, sometimes in ways that are constructive and mutually reinforcing, but at other times in ways that produce potential conflict.

Like an interface, foreign relations law addresses multiple and diverse questions about how the ‘domestic’ relates to the ‘international’ sphere. This introductory chapter unfolds the idea of bridges and boundaries between foreign relations law and public international law and develops the guiding questions of the volume. It also reflects on missed encounters between the two fields and introduces the core concepts and the approach of the book. Finally, it exposes the overall structure of the book and summarizes the contents of individual chapters.

Helmut Philipp Aust’s topic is the connection between foreign relations law and domestic conceptions of democracy, and in particular the question of ‘who gets to decide on the international commitments of a state?’. Populism and a broader inward–turn in the politics of many Western states, Aust writes, mean that ‘there is a growing level of discontent with the way that the external sphere is impacting on the internal’. These changing perceptions of ’the international’ filter through into different conceptions of foreign relations law, which, in turn, affect the ability of states to cooperate internationally. The chapter presents two variants of foreign relations law – a ’closed’ version prevalent in the USA, and a German version traditionally more open to international cooperation. Through a comparative analysis, Aust shows how the openness to international cooperation that was long seen to lie at the heart of the German Basic Law, is coming under increasing pressure.