IntroductionThis essay aims to examine how international multilateral treaties shape the Singapore state discourse on protecting the rights of migrant workers, particularly foreign domestic workers (FDWs) from a perspective of maintaining state sovereignty in the control of migratory flows towards a more humanitarian vision of FDWs as a group vulnerable to exploitation and trafficking. I would like to conclude that recently the international community has managed to put pressure on the State of Singapore to start making some efforts to guarantee the right to FDW. Finnermore (1996) argued that the United Nations creates norms and legitimizes actors to engage in multilateralism for humanitarian intervention. I borrowed his framework to analyze how the international community as a collective actor and the Singapore state as a state actor share different norms and values ​​and have different interests. Therefore, they behave and impact FDW rights differently. Significance of this essay for the concept of global governance Koser argued that states often try to solve migration problems with a “unilateral approach” that is unproductive. It is difficult to reach an international consensus on the rights of migrant workers as many states refuse to ratify the conventions because the conventions "contradict or add no value to existing national immigration laws". (Koser, 2010, pp. 301--315) Hollifield built on Ruggie's argument (Ruggie, 2002 cited in Hollifield, 2000) that multilateralism will only work when... middle of paper...&mtdsg_no= IV-13&chapter=4&lang=en [Accessed: 8 April 2014].UN. 1948. Universal Declaration of Human Rights. [online] Available at: http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/ [Accessed: 8 April 2014].Unodc.org. 2014. Signatories to the CTOC Trafficking Protocol. [online] Available at: https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/treaties/CTOC/countrylist-traffickingprotocol.html [Accessed: 8 April 2014].Varia, N. 2005. Singapore. New York, NY: Human Rights Watch.Www2.ohchr.org. 1990. International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families. [online] Available at: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cmw/cmw.htm [Accessed: 8 April 2014]. Yeoh, B.S., Huang, S. and Gonzalez III, J. 1999. Migrant domestic workers: debate on economic, social and political impacts in Singapore. International Journal on Migration, pp. 114--136.