Bangladesh, May 17 -- Diplomatic conferences have perfected the art of symbolic progress. Delegates gather in climate-controlled halls, issue carefully worded declarations, applaud procedural victories and then depart convinced that consensus has been achieved. Earlier this month, the second International Migration Review Forum in New York offered another example. Representatives celebrated the implementation of the Global Compact for Migration and praised international cooperation as a triumph of multilateral governance. Yet while speeches echoed through conference rooms, bodies continued washing ashore in the Mediterranean and migrants remained stranded in detention camps, deserts and collapsing transit corridors stretching across North...