Policy Reviews in Higher Education
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Towards a just and inclusive global higher education area? The UNESCO global convention within mobility and internationalisation debates
Abass B. Isiaka, Yann Lebeau & Theresa Frey
To cite this article: Abass B. Isiaka, Yann Lebeau & Theresa Frey (22 Feb 2026): Towards a just and inclusive global higher education area? The UNESCO global convention within mobility and internationalisation debates, Policy Reviews in Higher Education, DOI: 10.1080/23322969.2026.2632850
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Towards a just and inclusive global higher education area? The UNESCO global convention within mobility and internationalisation debates
Abass B. Isiaka a, Yann Lebeau a and Theresa Freya,b
aSchool of Education and Lifelong Learning, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK; bEnglish, ESL, and Reading Department, State University of New York, Westchester Community College, Valhalla, NY, USA

ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 30 June 2025
Accepted 10 February 2026
KEYWORDS
Global convention; qualification recognition; UNESCO; Global Higher Education Area; discursive space; inclusive mobility; higher education

ABSTRACT
Set against the backdrop of the complex dynamics of international student mobility and migration resulting from neoliberal globalisation and other global challenges such as climate change and the rise of neo-nationalism, this paper examines UNESCO’s attempts to frame the growing imperative for inclusive mobility in normative and regulatory terms. Particular attention is given to the Global Convention Concerning the Recognition of Higher Education Qualifications, adopted in 2019 and presented as the first legally binding instrument aimed at regulating higher education globally. The Global Convention expands the remit of existing UNESCO-supported regional recognition conventions to establish a framework for the fair, transparent and non- discriminatory recognition of higher education credentials. Through a network ethnography of key actors involved in the production and implementation of the Global Convention, we examine the reasons, timing and process of the Convention, as well as how power dynamics influence the design and evolution of the UNESCO agenda. Our study reveals how regional, national, and organisational logics contribute to the creation of a fluid yet codified and ritualised discursive space of dialogue and influence within UNESCO that both challenges and promotes UNESCO’s credentials as a regulatory alternative to market-driven ideologies that dominate the global governance of higher education.
Introduction
In the absence of a definite regulatory framework governing resources, content, mobility, or recognition, the ‘global governance’ of higher education is framed by the more or less influential standard-setting agendas and structuring discursive constructs of international organisations (Elfert and Ydesen 2023; Esmat 2024; Mundy and Verger 2016; Robertson 2022; Shahjahan 2012; Zapp 2021). Of these organisations, UNESCO is the only one
CONTACT Abass B. Isiaka a.isiaka@uea.ac.uk School of Education and Lifelong Learning, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK
© 2026 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
with a comprehensive mandate in higher education, as stated in its organisational charter (Bassett and Maldonado-Maldonado 2009; Mundy and Madden 2009). Its self-promoted rights-based approach to an inclusive global higher education landscape is commonly opposed to the more aggressive neoliberal discourses and measures driving World Bank and OECD support for the sector (Elfert and Ydesen 2023; Lebeau and Sall 2011; Zapp 2021; Zapp and Ramirez 2019). Among its standard-setting instruments, the Global Convention Concerning the Recognition of Higher Education Qualifications (hereafter Global Convention), adopted at its 40th General Assembly in 2019, is the most ambitious. The organisation presents it as the first UN legally binding instrument deployed to regulate the internationalisation of higher education (UNESCO n.d.-b).
The Global Convention builds on and expands the remit of existing UNESCO-supported regional recognition conventions to establish a ‘framework for the fair, transparent, and non-discriminatory recognition of higher education qualifications’ (Ibid.). In addition to expanding its recurring agenda for a fairer internationalisationation (Calderón, Pedro, and Vargas 2015; Lebeau and Sall 2011; Mundy and Madden 2009), the Global Convention presents UNESCO with an opportunity to align its position with new demands for sustainable approaches that support regional cooperation across the Global South, address environmental challenges and the shortcomings of excessive marketisation, and acknowledge new challenges such as the forced internationalisation induced by population displacements. But was a convention needed? Who initiated it? Why would the dominant players allow the introduction of yet another layer of regulation to a global field shaped to their own economic and symbolic benefits by decades of colonial and postcolonial domination, by existing recognition and quality assurance mechanisms, and by international market regulations? Why would national parliaments facing mounting nationalistic pressures want to ratify a convention requesting that they facilitate the recognition of the qualifications held by refugees? What is this new framework addressing that is not already covered by the recently revised regional conventions? And could the prospect and value of this convention be more than the ideological momentum it offers and the standard-setting instrument it carries?
This paper focuses on the production, adoption, and ratification of the Global Convention through a critical analysis of international and global dynamics in higher education. While we are aware of the convention’s status as a binding legal text, we regard it primarily as a discursive space that seeks to frame a global standard for the recognition of higher education qualifications, through authoritative knowledge and discourse, consultative processes and dynamics of influence. We interrogate the reasons, timing, and process of the convention adoption. Through a network ethnography involving observations of high-level meetings, document analysis, and a series of interviews with key actors involved in the production and implementation of the convention, we address the question of the impact of power dynamics on the design and evolution of the UNESCO agenda.
Our multiscalar investigation of the drivers of the adoption and ratification of the Global Convention and its complex relationship to national and institutional strategies for internationalisation, addresses the politics of inclusion from micro, mezzo, and macro perspectives. We reveal how regional, national, or even organisational logics contribute to the development of a fluid yet codified and ritualised discursive space of dialogue and influences within UNESCO, allowing the convention to present itself as a regulatory alternative to market-driven and imperialistic ideologies dominating debates on global governance of higher education.
From study mobility to study in mobility: changing perspectives on the internationalisation of higher education
The internationalisation, and more recently the globalisation, of the field of higher education has been primarily addressed in the research literature through the lens of academic mobility (of staff and students) across borders and systems, or from the perspective of institutions responding to this trend. However, the connection established by researchers between mobility and internationalisation has gradually evolved with our understanding of the dynamics of study mobility and of the purposes and impacts of internationalisation.
Over the past 25 years or so, growing economic and political challenges to the dominant liberal ideologies, the massive expansion and diversification of higher education in the Global South, the generalisation of English as medium of instruction, and the closer association of study mobility with other dynamics of (voluntary or forced) migration appear to have transformed the patterns of the ever-increasing global flows of students in mobility. Yet the methodological and conceptual literature continues, to a large extent, to perpetuate the imaginary of study mobility as taking place between a source and a destination country, and as a transaction in a zero-sum game where the mobile and the host countries are the winners, and the immobile ‘stayers’ the losers (Chou 2021, 752).
This changing context is acknowledged in the more recent literature on international study mobility, challenging the imaginary of study mobility reflected in the policy and research literature of the past 30 years. By addressing the mobility process in all its dimensions (economic, emotional, temporal, etc.), this change of perspective (see, e.g. Fahey and Kenway 2010; Finn 2017; Gérard and Lebeau 2023; Manzi, Ojeda, and Hawkins 2019; Netz and Jaksztat 2017; Shahjahan 2023) challenges the transactional paradigm and invites more inclusive approaches to academic staff and students’ lived mobilities and their regulation (Manzi, Ojeda, and Hawkins 2019; Morley et al. 2018; Riaño, Van Mol, and Raghuram 2018; Tran 2016). The inclusion perspective in contemporary studies of mobilities and the internationalisation of higher education draws on this deeper understanding of the circumstances and processes of mobility without losing sight of the wider impact of global challenges and forces (Bamberger and Morris 2024; Bamberger, Morris, and Yemini 2019; Mulvey 2022). The change of paradigm also signals a move away from celebratory conceptualisations of the internationalisation of higher education seen as ‘unconditional good’ (Morley et al. 2018, 549) and framed as ‘apolitical and largely divorced from broader discussions of historical or geopolitical inequalities, ethical responsibilities, and alternative possibilities for engaging with and across difference’ (Buckner and Stein 2019, 152).
Towards a sustainable internationalisation of higher education
The relationship between higher education and development was emphasised by UNESCO, with reference to newly independent ‘developing’ countries from the early 1960s (Coleman 1986; Elfert 2021; Lebeau and Sall 2011). The 2015 Sustainable Development Goals reiterated and expanded this expectation of higher education as supporting the wider agenda of sustainability, gender equality and empowerment, raising awareness of and supporting resilience to climate-related risks, and generating skills for emerging green industries (UNESCO 2016). In this context, the dominant economic and commercial rationales of International Student Mobility (ISM) and internationalisation have come under scrutiny and criticism (Bamberger, Morris, and Yemini 2019). Questions about the fairness and sustainability of internationalisation have been approached from three dominant perspectives: economic, societal, and environmental. Studies on the environmental impact of ISM have shown how the sustained growth of ISM has not translated into a significant rise in greenhouse gas emissions due to the changing nature and direction of mobilities. The regionalisation of mobility observed in recent years – where mobile students are travelling closer to their home countries – has reportedly begun to offset the damaging impact of over 7 million students in circulation around the world (Shields 2013, 2019). Strategies toward regional higher education collaboration and mobility may also counter prevailing hegemonic patterns of internationalisation, as observed in current projects in South America (Perrotta 2016a, 2016b), rather than support or even exacerbate them, as seen, for instance, with the European Higher Education Area (Chou, Huisman, and Lorenzo 2024; Hartmann 2008). Such trends align well with the regional and global UNESCO conventions calling for stronger regional cooperation (Calderón, Pedro, and Vargas 2015; UNESCO n.d.-b; 2009) and seeking to disrupt South–North dependencies through fairer and more transparent quality assurance and qualification recognition frameworks. In the wake of calls for a more critical perspective on internationalisation (Buckner and Stein 2019), an emerging strand of literature interrogates the future of internationalisation, bringing up notions of ‘forced internationalisation’ (Ergin, de Wit, and Leask 2019) to highlight the impact of forced mobility, and of ‘de-internationalisation’ (Jæger 2023; Tange and Jæger 2021) where under neo-nationalist pressure, national policies seek to reduce the number of incoming international students (Brøgger 2023; van der Wende 2021).
Challenging the international order: changing roles in global governance of mobility and internationalisation
Studies of post-war global education policies have labelled UNESCO, the World Bank, and the OECD as the tripod pillars of the global governance architecture, even though they operate from contrasting ideological orientations, modes of operation, and financial capabilities (Elfert and Ydesen 2023). The declining influence of UNESCO in this arena since the 1980s has been attributed to the rise of free-market neoliberal ideologies and to its own complex governance structure (Elfert and Ydesen 2023; Zapp and Ramirez 2019). In higher education, where states retain all prerogatives, the soft governance or soft power mechanisms of the OECD, such as data generation, instrument development, policy evaluation, and the stimulation of a multilateral surveillance culture among members, have proven to be more powerful regulatory tools (Grek 2020; Martens and Jakobi 2010). Meanwhile, the World Bank has transformed from an organisation with no formal mandate in education into one of the most influential and hegemonic international organisations (IOs) shaping global education policy and funding (Mundy and Verger 2016). Against this backdrop, Elfert and Ydesen (2023) characterise UNESCO as the ‘idealist’, the OECD as the ‘master of persuasion’, and the World Bank as the ‘master of coercion’. Meanwhile, the European Union (in its partnership with the Council of Europe) emerged on the global stage, reinforcing its role as standard-setter, primarily through unilateral regulatory globalisation with the Lisbon strategy, the creation of a European Higher Education Area, the (panEuropean) Bologna Process and the European Framework for Lifelong Learning (Bradford 2020; Dakowska 2019; Hartmann 2015; Robertson, Azevedo, and Dale 2016). While it is useful to reflect on the broad impressions left by these international organisations and actors on national agendas, broad characterisations do not withstand more fine-tuned analysis of actual practices regarding the regulation of the global higher education landscape.
As Mundy and Verger (2016) suggest, organisational culture is not simply a byproduct of mandates and institutional structures but is shaped by shared ideologies, norms, and routines that influence staff expectations regarding agenda-setting, policy implementation, evaluation mechanisms, and internal hierarchies. Our constructivist lens for understanding UNESCO’s role within global higher education governance also challenges static categorisations by considering it a dynamic entity occupying different positions along the spectrum of idealism, persuasion, and coercion, seeking to reclaim its position within an increasingly neoliberal governance landscape through its normative and regulatory conventions on qualification recognition in higher education (Zapp and Ramirez 2019).
UNESCO’s discursive space as heuristic: theoretical and methodological considerations
UNESCO operates using standard-setting instruments – Recommendations and International Conventions – to address issues related to its core mandates. International Conventions are both normative and regulatory instruments subject to ratification, acceptance, or accession by Member States. They define the rules within which the states undertake to comply. Member States that sign or agree to abide by a convention become State Parties to the Convention, and the convention becomes binding after a certain number of ratifications have been achieved. The process leading to the adoption, ratification, and implementation of a convention may take many years and involves multiple stages of preparation, discussion, and consultation.
Beyond their status as legally binding standard-setting instruments, UNESCO conventions, both regional and global, have evolved into spaces for deliberation and consultation on policy and system-changing issues. In this respect, they resemble the Habermasian public sphere as a theatre in which ‘political participation is enacted through the medium of talk’ and as an ‘institutionalised arena of discursive interaction’ (Fraser 1990). In the case of conventions, the autonomy of the arena is granted by UNESCO’s constitution, which defines the relationship with Member States and other organisations and institutions. The arena (referring to the discursive space framing the entire process) permits the production and circulation of discourses that can, in principle, be critical of states and existing supranational regulatory policies.
The public sphere, in the Habermasian sense, is not an arena of market relations but rather one of discursive relations – a theatre for debating and deliberating rather than for buying and selling. Thus, this concept of the public sphere permits us to keep in view the distinctions between state apparatuses, economic markets, and democratic associations, distinctions that are essential to the democratic theory of international relations (Fraser 1990). The institutional mechanism of UNESCO, embodied in the Convention as a discursive public sphere, can be summarised as a specific kind of discursive interaction where there is an ‘ideal of unrestricted rational discussion of public matters’ (Ibid p.59).
Devoid of influences and lobby in principle, the Convention as a public sphere embraces values such as inclusivity, transparency, and equity, with the common good as the overarching principle. Bringing in Laclau and Mouffe’s (2001) discursive space allows for a more critical perspective of the arena as a discursive construction. From that perspective, the Convention seeks to frame a meaningful (and thus hegemonic) representation (a moment) out of multiple perspectives and interests (or ‘elements’) (Laclau and Mouffe 2001). Following Laclau and Mouffe, we examine the Global Convention as a multifunctional discursive structure, including knowledge functions (fixation/ascription/ production of meanings and expectations for higher education systems), relational functions (relations of representations of the regional and global convention, between regions and Member States), and identity functions (the deliberative power granted by the distinction between state parties and member states to a convention).
We take UNESCO as one of those ‘complex and contradictory spaces ripe for critical interrogation’ (Peck and Theodore 2012, 21) to understand how the ongoing relations and negotiations within UNESCO for the global education agenda are achieved through the Global Convention. While a number of studies have looked at the interaction between the global and local (Jæger 2023; Marginson 2022; Paradeise and Thoenig 2013), our study moves beyond methodological nationalism by not assuming the direction of policy travel from the ‘global’ to the ‘national’. We reveal through a network ethnography of policy formation and a discursive space perspective on the Global Convention how the national or even the organisational is critical in defining global policy agendas. Networks are not just a set of connections between sites but ritualised spaces of dialogue, influences, and constraints leading to policy. Network ethnography is an assemblage of research tactics and techniques that engage with the topography of a particular policy text or process, but it is also a history of ongoing effort, animated by social relations and performance (Ball 2016).
We followed the Global Convention from its adoption in Paris in 2019 and the policy actors involved at various stages of its dissemination and implementation. We interviewed representatives from five Member States (Zambia, UK, Türkiye, Jordan, and Norway), as well as the UNESCO programme officers who prepared for and mobilised the convention and coordinated regional conventions, representatives of two National Qualification Authorities, and university internationalisation officers. Additionally, we conducted informal interviews with delegates from Member States during our visits to Paris, particularly at an Intergovernmental Conference where future plans for the convention implementation were agreed.
A complex interplay between the regional and global
The 2019 Global Convention serves as a framework for the recognition of qualifications and the mobility of services and people. It was built upon the complex history of harmonising higher education qualifications, which has seen both developments and failures, leading to the adoption of regional conventions known as the first and second generations of qualification regimes (Zapp and Ramirez 2019). Before the Global Convention, the ‘Recommendation on the Recognition of Studies and Qualifications in Higher Education’ (UNESCO 1993), adopted at UNESCO’s 27th General Conference, served as an interim non-binding international framework for addressing interregional issues concerning the recognition of higher education qualifications and quality assurance. UNESCO’s broader interest in a unified monitoring principle for regional conventions, expressed in preliminary studies and meetings held between 2011 and 2013, indicated growing support for creating a binding global instrument for recognition. This interest stemmed from several factors: post-war challenges confronting higher education systems; weak engagement (with the exception of the Lisbon Recognition Convention developed in partnership with the Council of Europe) of Member States with existing regional conventions that did not reflect actual patterns of student mobility (Hartmann 2015); and an increasing appreciation of the need for a more flexible and pragmatic approach to recognition. These developments prompted revisions to several regional conventions and informed the consultation process leading to the Global Convention (UNESCO 2013).
The failures and successes of the revised conventions, as described by participants in this study, can be attributed to contrasting regional capacities and to the power of isomorphic forces within an increasingly global higher education landscape. Therefore, the Global Convention emerged and was finalised in a context where some regional conventions were still in more or less advanced states of revision. As noted by a former Chief of the Higher Education Section at UNESCO HQ, the storyline was not a linear one from the start:
‘The concept of a global convention was the original plan back in the 70s. It didn’t work for reasons which have probably been lost to the annals of time. Hence, it’s the only treaty in the UN system where we have got regional conventions for the five regions … ’ (Former Chief of Higher Education Section, UNESCO HQ)
Yet in the UNESCO language, the Global Convention builds on the achievements of the earliest regional conventions and provides coordination and support to the more recent iterations in order to strengthen international cooperation in higher education (Section II, Global Convention). A message of straightforward complementarity among clearly purposed instruments, ‘the regional recognition conventions cover recognition and mobility in each region, the Global Convention facilitates this between regions’ (UNESCO n.d.-a), appears in slight tension with the uneasiness of UNESCO executives to qualify the relationship between the two:
‘That was the choice that was made that we will have this parallel processes of regional conventions and sort of an overarching global convention that will not only cover or regulate qualification holders between the regions, which was not covered by the regional conventions but also be sort of an umbrella for the these conventions, so that there is some kind of interaction between the regional conventions and their various committees through the global convention’. (Programme Officer, UNESCO HQ).
As the discursive space of the Global Convention began to shape up and take precedence within the UNESCO higher education strategy, some Member States questioned these parallel developments, concerned about the need to ratify two conventions essentially serving similar purposes, particularly in the Global South, where second-generation conventions were still being finalised or ratified in 2019. A director of the secretariat hosting the Buenos Aires Convention noted:
‘It is really unusual for UNESCO to have regional conventions, most of the conventions we have are global in nature. So, I think that is why many countries come to us and say why do we have to ratify two different conventions, how different are they? … So, there is a lot of confusion, and if we could have a fresher start, we would only have a global convention’. (Director, UNESCO Regional Secretariat).
Most of the UNESCO staff we spoke to recognised the existential conundrum that accompanies the introduction and adoption of the Global Convention. This complex interplay is somehow acknowledged in Article XIX of the Global Convention, which contradicts the UNESCO explanatory notes cited above by stating that ‘the ratification of, acceptance of, approval of, or accession to any of the regional recognition conventions shall not be a prerequisite for the ratification of, acceptance of, approval of, or accession to this Convention’. In the same spirit, the UNESCO Higher Education Section encourages countries in regions experiencing delays in the adoption of their convention, to go global and ratify the very similar Global Convention according to the principle that ‘he who can do more can do less’ (Former Chief of Higher Education Section). The additional concern for countries already uncertain about the meaning of such conventions for their higher education systems is whether to sign the regional, the global, or both conventions.
Meanings, understandings and expectations
This ‘confusion’ stemmed from assumptions in the UNESCO Higher Education Section that even though regions are heterogeneous in their higher education configuration and economic development, the Global Convention would provide an overarching policy architecture that would not only facilitate qualification recognition between regions but also regulate the wider reach of qualifications recognition (e.g. addressing TNE). Given its decentralised nature as an organisation, UNESCO expected the Global Convention to build ‘some kind of interaction between the regional conventions and their committees’ in a reflection of its framing as an inclusive process rather than a hierarchical decision-making structure. However, the fact that the Global Convention process stimulated (in its early stages) the adoption of the remaining second-generation regional conventions before hindering their ratification (through discourses of senior officials and the wording of article XIX of Global Convention) confirms the realisation from the UNESCO team that UNESCO regional offices were not all ready to support the globalisation of the recognition process while some of their Member States were:
‘Now we can see that apart from Europe, many countries have not yet ratified their regional convention … . So, there is a tension here, we can say, because we’ve also slowly seen that there will probably be more interest in the global convention in the longer run and that there will be maybe some competition’ (Chief Higher Education Section).
The first-generation regional conventions of the 1970-80s were evaluated in 2016, and their weaknesses were attributed to UNESCO’s organisational capacity (specifically, the tension between the responsibilities of the higher education sections, regional offices, and field offices), a lack of financial resources in the regional offices to actively promote the ratification of conventions, and an unconvincing narrative (due to a lack of evidence) on the benefits of regional conventions to Members (UNESCO Evaluation Office 2016).
The initiative to revise the first-generation recognition conventions gained momentum with the adoption of the Lisbon Recognition Convention in 1997, which subsequently entered into force in 1999. Since then, all four remaining UNESCO regions have developed and adopted updated, second-generation conventions: the Tokyo Convention in 2011 (entered into force in 2018), the Addis Convention in 2014 (entered into force in 2019), the Buenos Aires Convention in 2019 (entered into force in 2022), and the Arab States Convention in 2022, which has yet to enter into force. By 2019, when the Global Convention was adopted, several of these revised regional instruments were still undergoing adoption or ratification. This sequence illustrates that the evolution of global and regional conventions did not follow a strict chronological or hierarchical order but rather progressed in parallel across regions.
In legal and practical terms, the Global Convention does not in any way ‘supersede’ the regional conventions, but its prominence as a discursive space is now diverting the attention of some Member States from the regional to the global. As interviews with officials in Jordan and Türkiye indicated, references to assigned UNESCO regions may not fully satisfy national strategies of higher education internationalisation. Türkiye considered that joining the Lisbon Recognition Convention had already anchored the country into the global system, and among players with similar objectives of internationalisation (Interview with representatives of the Council of Higher Education), Jordan, by contrast, was still reluctant to sign a regional convention seen as putting Jordanian qualifications on par with some countries of the region whose degrees they do not want to recognise, and therefore was more willing to engage with the process of ratification of the Global Convention (Interview with a representative of the Jordanian Ministry of Higher Education). Elsewhere, those in support of keeping the regional conventions regardless have argued that a Global Convention alone risks reinforcing existing centre-periphery logics within the geopolitics of higher education regimes.
‘We need those regional instruments because otherwise we are going to reinforce the existing imbalance between the global North and the global South. So a way of dealing with this is to make sure that we keep talking about the need to have stronger regions … ’ (Secretary, Buenos Aires Convention).
Beyond variations in the regional-global interplay, the Global Convention was anticipated to introduce to the global education policy arena the elusive inter-regional cooperation and innovations that would facilitate global skills mobility and the recognition of higher education qualifications. Out of the ten objectives of the Global Convention, three have been prominent in framing the convention’s discursive space. First is the provision of a global framework for a ‘fair, transparent, consistent, coherent, timely and reliable recognition of qualifications concerning higher education’ (UNESCO 2019a, 4), second is the promotion of a ‘culture of quality assurance mechanisms’ (Ibid.) for higher education systems, and third is the idea of ‘recognition for all’, including undocumented refugees and displaced persons (Article VII).
These three objectives of the Convention epitomise UNESCO’s agenda for inclusive internationalisation of higher education. However, their articulation in a Convention that challenges, at least in principle, the dominant market practices within global higher education faces questions, if not resistance, in the Global South, where some countries are reluctant to embark on yet another ‘global’ project emanating from the North (Addey 2021; Leal et al. 2024). Despite this resistance, or possibly as a result of its expression in the public arena, the global convention and its affordances further position UNESCO as a ‘norm entrepreneur’ (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998), incorporating the principles of the UN Sustainable Development Goals within the soft governance of global higher education. This was highlighted by a representative of the UK National Commission for UNESCO, who described UNESCO’s success with a Global Convention operating as a standard-setting instrument and a ‘laboratory of ideas’ (UK National Commission representative for UNESCO).
In this context of juxtaposition, if not superimposition, at both regional and international levels, instruments with strikingly similar language and purpose make the Global Convention an important political process for some Member States to engage in, sometimes rejecting regional initiatives. In negotiations, this political process often conceals the tangible applications of an instrument that some view as a critical asset for facilitating access to international labour markets for their own graduates. Its instigators promote it as capable of reducing brain drain and facilitating the integration of internationally displaced persons. While emphasising broad aims and values, the UNESCO communication also downplays other significant outcomes of the Global Convention, such as facilitating the spread of transnational education (TNE) and engaging State Parties in quality assurance processes and mechanisms built on institutional trust and transparency.
An ostensibly inclusive, highly ritualised and convoluted process
Following a feasibility study initiated in 2011, the development of drafts involved a Special Committee of ‘23 independent experts appointed on a geographical balance basis from all UNESCO regions’ producing the first full draft in 2017 ahead of the 39th session of the General Conference (UNESCO 2019b, 2). This step was followed by further consultations with Member States and relevant stakeholders on the draft, ‘including through an intergovernmental Special Committee open to all Member States’ (UNESCO 2019b, 2) before the submission of the final draft for adoption by the General Conference at its 40th session. According to the UK Minister for Higher Education reporting to the Government in 2021 ahead of the ratification of the Convention, the last meeting of the Special Committee in 2019 involved ‘more than 260 technical and legal experts from around 150 Member States, including the UK’ (Donelan 2021). This process, hailed as open, transparent, and driven by a combination of expert knowledge and Member State voices, revealed tensions symptomatic of the unequal capacity of States despite their assumed prerogatives over higher education policies to navigate and resist the multiple influences (experts, non-state stakeholders) inputting into the Convention.
‘There have been definitely more stakeholders involved than just Member States. As I said, in 2018 we included feedback from other UN agencies. They were invited because we were obliged to do it, you know, according to the UNESCO rules. And also different kind of other intergovernmental regional organisations like Council of Europe, African Union, those kinds of things’ (Programme Officer, UNESCO HQ).
The consultation process was reported to be cumbersome and time-consuming, with multiple exchanges between the Secretariat and Member States in negotiations regarding the content of the text before its adoption by the General Assembly.
‘There was a generally very positive reception of this idea. Then, of course, there were … two to three years of consultations and negotiations over the text. I mean, there was a drafting committee elaborating the text to the committee of experts, and then this text was circulated. We got a quite a lot of feedback, I think around 100 Member States responded. And yeah, there were literally thousands of comments to the draft’ (Programme Officer, UNESCO HQ).
Through this convoluted consultation, UNESCO showcases the Global Convention and its adoption process as inclusive and receptive to ideas and modifications from Member States. Yet, the process is coordinated by an international working group composed of experts from UNESCO Member States. This working group, known as the Drafting Committee or later known as the Convention Bureau, acts as the mediator and negotiator between Member States and the UNESCO Secretariat (UNESCO 2015). While the Secretariat does most of the ‘behind the scenes’ work of drafting and communicating the text to be adopted, the Bureau takes on a symbolic role of presenting the texts of the convention to the conference for adoption, thereby distancing the Secretariat from the adoption and negotiation process. We observed that this arrangement is dynamically contentious, as the two bodies seem to have differing views on how things should pan out and ‘who should run the show’, as described by a member of the working group. Professionals in the Secretariat, on the one hand, believe that the Higher Education Section commands a gamut of experience in coordinating the conventions’ consultation and negotiations since the regional conventions, while the Bureau considers the ‘power over the texts’ to be with the Member States whose interests it represents. The first excerpt below shows the position of the UNESCO Secretariat, while the second presents the contrasting view of the Bureau on the prerogative over the text.
‘There were absolutely no objections or no amendments at the adoption, but that was because we put the work in beforehand. I was involved with the Lisbon Convention and then the Addis Convention also was involved in that, then the Tokyo … . for 20 years or so we kind of knew what the structure of the Convention should look like and what should be in there’. (Former Head of Section, UNESCO HQ).
‘In the proposed text by the secretariat, it basically said that the Bureau should agree on everything that the Secretariat proposed. Needless to say, that backfired, and now it’s much more balanced and the power is where it should be. It’s with the State Parties. This didn’t go without a fight, and the Secretariat was not too happy. And they’re kind of used to running the show with the Member States in the regional conventions, but from my perspective, this is not how things should operate with the Global Convention … it’s the State Parties that are in charge and the Secretariat is namely a secretariat to follow up’. (President, Convention Bureau).
Of interest here, beyond the typical debate between legitimate representation and expertise, is that the Bureau is not merely a group of disinterested parties. While members have a responsibility to the Convention as representatives of Member States, they are stakeholders with personal, professional, and national agendas, often with a professional trajectory straddling national, regional, and global organisations. As we will show in the rest of this paper, UNESCO’s organisational structure and resource constraints have meant that Member States with resources can not only strategically appoint influential representatives to the Bureau but also finance events supporting the progress of the Convention towards adoption or ratification and influence the recruitment of key staff in the Secretariat.
For example, the inclusion of Article VII in the Global Convention, which makes the case for the fair and transparent recognition of refugees’ undocumented qualifications, is said to have been pushed through by the Secretariat with the backing of some Member States and other UN agencies such as the UNHCR, despite being contentious in the negotiation process in some regions of the world. A programme officer within the Higher Education Section noted how organisations pivotal in the inclusion of Article VII in the Lisbon Recognition Convention also played a key role in its inclusion in the Global Convention.
‘There is an actual way of influencing also … especially from the UNHCR, [they] attended these meetings and were actively promoting this inclusion of Article IIV. Obviously, it is the same with the Council of Europe, our partner with the Lisbon Convention, and we also have the European Qualification Passport. So yeah, there were voices from these groups’. (Programme Officer, UNESCO HQ).
Alongside large institutional voices, university associations and other interest groups also participated in the consultation process and continue to monitor the ratification and implementation phases as observers.
A discursive space ripe for influence and lobbying
The Global Convention arena has been used to promote the ideals of a just and inclusive Global Higher Education Area. However, the agency of Member States and other stakeholders, permitted by the decentralised and financially challenged organisational capacity of UNESCO and the discursive space of the convention, is not limited to seizing the opportunity of a global audience to convey messages. As we saw earlier in the paper, the capacity for influence is ingrained in the Convention policy process, from shaping the initial draft to leveraging political support for particular options, the appointment of HQ staff and experts, and promoting decisions and texts. This reality, already well documented in the case of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee and Heritage list (Liuzza and Meskell 2023; Pecqueur 2018), can be observed at every step of the Global Convention and in the language of delegates and staff interviewed. It was again evident during the paragraph-by-paragraph adoption of the resolution of the working group at the intergovernmental conference in March 2024, where representatives of State Parties were invited to express concerns or suggestions. We expected some reactions to a resolution about commissioning a research paper on the recognition of refugees’ qualifications, particularly from the regions where the inclusion of Article VII of the Convention has been hotly debated (Latin America and Middle Eastern Regions). However, the only request came from the UK delegate for the insertion of ‘with due consideration of gender equality’ to the proposed research paper remit. The insertion was approved, and the resolution was amended right on the screen, with no counter-suggestion from any of the State Parties.
Apart from diverting attention away from the contentious issue of refugee qualification recognition, the UK request, together with a statement on the UK government’s International Women and Girls Strategy, helped position the UK government as a champion of women’s rights on the global stage (on the eve of UNESCO’s International Women’s Day celebrations). At the same time it ensured a direct influence on the proposed output and the subsequent research agenda.
Member states’ (or state agencies) interventions and influence can manifest in various forms – including voluntary contributions of resources and expertise – throughout the policy formulation and implementation within the Convention process. For instance, the Norwegian Agency for Quality Assurance in Education (NOKUT), which also led the development and piloting of the European Qualification Passport for Refugees, was, along with the European Network of National Information Centres on Academic Mobility and Recognition (ENIC) and National Academic Recognition Information Centres in the European Union (NARIC), able to offer their competence and resources to develop the Global Convention:
‘ … we have always been very active in the Lisbon Recognition Convention committee since the start of the negotiations. Also, we played various roles in the ENIC-NARIC network and so on and being a strong voice. So, it’s both in a way, a political desire and a willingness to put in competence and a certain amount of financing to help UNESCO further develop these tools. For more than 10 years, Norway, put to the table, the proposal for a general conference that should look into a feasibility study for a global recognition Convention’. (Norway Delegate to the UNESCO Global Convention Bureau).
This permeability to influences and lobbying is neither specific to this convention (see e.g. Liuzza and Meskell 2023) nor a result of UNESCO’s dwindling finances alone (Hüfner 2017). It is also, to a large extent, an illustration of a Global Convention operating as a discursive space over an area of national sensitivity and state prerogatives. Yet, this open and inclusive process can be problematic in the absence of strong resources within the institution. As we have just seen, the agenda and development of the instrument are blurred by lengthy consultations that generate overlaps and contradictions with other ongoing initiatives. They also become increasingly dependent on national or even corporate interests supporting them as they develop.
Conclusion and implications
UNESCO celebrated the ‘entry into force’ of the Convention on the 6th of March 2023, emphasising its wider significance to the world: ‘The entry into force of the Global Convention is a transformative event for higher education globally, taking us one step closer to achieving SDG 4.3 on quality tertiary education’ (UNESCO n.d.-b). The Convention had, at that point, five years after its adoption by the General Assembly, been ratified by the required 20 countries. This slow take-up was not going to affect the organisation’s communication on the importance of the milestone: its message to other Member States and to the wider world of higher education was all about a new ‘global’ regulatory framework under UNESCO’s auspices, positioning higher education as part of the broader march towards global sustainability.
In fairness, what the UNESCO Convention achieved would be inadequately measured by its ratification rate (less than a third of member states by the end of 2025). Although the Lisbon Recognition Convention demonstrated the importance of ratification in the efficacy of a standard-setting instrument, it was its integration into a broader set of European initiatives to reconfigure the European Higher Education Area, as much as its critical importance to each signatory, that drove its high endorsement. Yet, many of our interlocutors were prompt to highlight ‘Lisbon’ as a model of convention ratification. We view this as an effective endeavour by key European powers to occupy the public arena created by the Global Convention and to exert control over discursive relations. They achieve this by monopolising debates and deliberations through voluntary provision of expert knowledge, targeted financial contributions to the process, and strategic appointments. Our interviews show how, within the discursive space of the Global Convention, a hegemonic representation of the Lisbon Recognition Convention as good practice to follow takes shape. A similar process is observed in the relationship between the UNESCO Qualification Passport for Refugees and the Council of Europe’s European Qualifications Passport for Refugees, referred to in Article VII of the Lisbon Convention and Article VII of the Global Convention, respectively.
We are not suggesting a ‘Europeanisation’ of the Global Convention through a concerted effort to impose a European model of quality assurance/equivalence/recognition on a ‘Global Higher Education Area’. Rather, we see a series of ‘contagion diffusion’ (Manners 2008, 36) of normative principles, of ‘logics of actions’ reflective of an ‘implicit coherence between a series of practices’ (Remy et al. 1978 as cited in Ball and Maroy 2008, 99) from European stakeholders throughout the Global Convention process. What is, however, clear is that the success of the Lisbon Recognition Convention is partly based on the support of ‘secondary harmonisation’ (Mavrot and Sager 2018) offered by the multi-level governance of higher education in Europe such as the CoE, which other regional conventions have not received. In addition to this lack of coordination and regional leadership within other UNESCO regions, issues of university autonomy and access to higher education, national quality assurance policies, immigration policies, and unequal labour market opportunities have compounded to hamper the progress of regional qualifications recognition.
A careful examination of the Global Convention process illuminates the significance of UNESCO conventions as discursive spaces and their instrumentalisation by all stakeholders, including states, partner organisations, and UNESCO itself. Within these spaces, despite its well-documented structural, constitutional, and financial frailties, UNESCO advances an agenda for global mobility and sustainable international higher education.
Does such an agenda need global legally binding regulation? Trends in restrictions on international students’ access and treatment in countries that are already signatories to the convention remind us of states’ prerogatives in matters of study and labour mobility. However, the seeds are planted when states, whether ratifying the convention or not, begin adopting measures for recognition based on similar principles, or when regional cooperation bodies adopt shared principles for the recognition of qualifications. None of the Regional Conventions has the legal and administrative means to ensure strict implementation of its principles, but they are disseminated to a more receptive audience, elevating the principles to meaningful representations on the global stage of the Global Convention.
The debate on sustainable internationalisation, framed today as inclusive international and regional mobility, was not initiated by UNESCO. However, the integration of fair recognition of qualifications and transnational education (TNE) alongside the neoliberal mantra of barrier-free study mobility represents UNESCO’s effort spanning several decades. The meaning of sustainable and fair international higher education is at stake in the multiple layers of debates and lobbying outlined in this paper. However, few institutional spaces allow those contradictory forces and challenges to the globalisation of higher education to express themselves more clearly than the discursive space of a UNESCO Global Convention.
Statements and declarations
. The research leading to these results received funding from the British Association for International and Comparative Education.
. Institutional ethics approval was obtained (ETH2223-2654).
. All participants were sent an information sheet and signed a consent form approved by UEA’s School of Education and Lifelong Learning Ethics Committee.
. The authors declare no competing interests.
Author contributions
All authors contributed to the study design, data collection and analysis. The conceptual framework and first draft of the manuscript were developed by Abass Isiaka and Yann Lebeau, and all authors contributed to previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Funding
This work was supported by British Association for International and Comparative Education.
ORCID
Abass B. Isiaka http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0459-8903
Yann Lebeau http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0304-3260
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