This Policy Brief presents the preliminary findings and policy recommendations emerging from the first 18 months of the ASILE H2020 project (Global Asylum Governance and the EU’s Role). It provides an analysis of asylum governance instruments that have been portrayed as ‘promising practices’ in countries like Brazil, Canada, Jordan, South Africa as well as in the EU. These include instruments like resettlement, community sponsorships, humanitarian admission programmes, and trade deals focused on refugee labour market integration in hosting countries. The Brief highlights that while these instruments present some relevant mobility and inclusionary components, they also display a set of exclusionary features which operationalise hierarchies of deservedness and temporariness. They also lead to discrimination that is incompatible with state commitments under international and regional human rights and rule of law standards. The Policy Brief provides a set of lessons learned in the implementation of the EU’s Pact on Migration and Asylum and the EU’s cooperation with third countries on migration and asylum management in light of the United Nations Global Compact on Refugees.