What are the human rights obligations of Frontex and its member states at the borders of Europe? Who is responsible when the rights of people crossing those borders are breached? Those are the main questions that this open access book addresses while exploring the evolution of the European integrated border management (EIBM). The mode of administration of European borders has become a complex and polymorphous affair involving multiple actors working at different levels, with different competences and powers. In this context, borders are no longer lines on a map but enmeshed in a tapestry of different actors and technologies. This evolution not only puts to test the relationship between territory and public power, but it also requires a different understanding of the responsibility for the exercise of that power by a panoply of actors. This book addresses the challenges related to the implementation of the EIBM and the human rights responsibilities that it can trigger. It entwines two separate but interlaced discourses: the first being a reflection on the concept of EIBM and its human rights impact; the second being the question of the attribution of international responsibility for violations that occurred in the implementation of the EIBM. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation.

The EU is developing a border management strategy aiming at an quot;integrated and global responsequot; to the challenges posed by the phenomenon of irregular immigration through the common external borders. quot;The Southern maritime bordersquot; constitute one of the main targets addressed by this strategy. On November 2006, the European Commission published a communication calling for the reinforced management of the EU's Southern maritime borders and for the maximization of the capacities of the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union - FRONTEX. This paper provides some reflections about these current policy approaches by looking at the nature, scope and practical implications of the implementation of the Integrated Border Management strategy and its relationship with a common EU immigration policy. After assessing the latest policy developments in these areas, we raise a number of questions about some of the functions and capacities carried out by FRONTEX, and present a series of vulnerabilities characterizing the joint operations coordinated by this Community body taking the example of the operations HERA I, II and III in the Canary Islands (Spain).

Over the last few decades, both the European Union and European States have been implementing various strategies to externalize border controls with the declared intent of saving human lives and countering smuggling but with the actual end result of shifting borders, circumventing international obligations and ultimately preventing access to Europe. What has been principally deplored is the fact that externalizing border controls risks creating ‘legal black holes’. Furthermore, what is particularly worrying in the current European debate is the intensification of this practice by multiple arrangements with unsafe third countries, exposing migrants and asylum seekers to serious human rights violations. This book explores whether European States can succeed in shifting their responsibility onto Third States in cases of human rights violations. Focusing, in particular, on the 2017 Italy-Libya Memorandum of Understanding, the book investigates the possible basis for triggering the responsibility of outsourcing States. The second part of the book examines how the Italy-Libya MoU is only a small part of a broader scenario, exploring EU policies of externalization. A brief overview of the recent decisions of the EU Court vis-à-vis two aspects of externalization (the EU-Turkey statement and the issue of humanitarian visas) will pave the way for the conclusions since, in the author’s view, the current attitude of the Luxembourg Court confirms the importance of focusing on the responsibility of European States and the urgent need to investigate the possibility of bringing a claim against the outsourcing States before the Court of Strasbourg. Offering a new perspective on an extremely topical subject, this book will appeal to students, scholars and practitioners with an interest in European Law, International Law, Migration and Human Rights.

This edited volume examines the extent to which the various authorities and actors currently performing border management and expulsion-related tasks are subject to accountability mechanisms capable of delivering effective remedies and justice for abuses suffered by migrants and asylum seekers. Member states of the European Union and State Parties to the Council of Europe are under the obligation to establish complaint mechanisms allowing immigrants and/or asylum seekers to seek effective remedies in cases where their rights are violated. This book sheds light on the complaint bodies and procedures existing and available in Austria, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Spain, Poland, and Romania. It assesses their role in overseeing, investigating, and redressing cases of human rights violations deriving from violent border and immigration management practices, and expedited expulsion procedures. This book therefore provides an assessment of the practical, legal, and procedural challenges that affect the possibility to lodge complaints and access remedies for human rights violations suffered at the hands of the law enforcement authorities and other security actors operating at land, air, and sea borders, or participating in expulsions procedures – in particular, joint return flights. The volume will be of key interest to students, scholars, and practitioners working on human rights, migration and borders, international law, European law and security studies, EU politics, and more broadly, international relations.

Der vorliegende Band geht zurück auf eine internationale Summer School zum Migrations-, Asyl- und Flüchtlingsrecht in Barcelona. Im Sinne eines intergenerationellen wissenschaftlichen Austausches kommen Studierende, Nachwuchswissenschaftler*innen und arrivierte Expertinnen ins disziplinübergreifende Gespräch zu migrationsrechtlichen respektive migrationspolitischen Grundsatzfragen, die seit der Flüchtlingsschutzkrise des Jahres 2015 virulenter denn je geworden sind. Europa-, menschen- und völkerrechtliche Aspekte werden um nationalstaatliche Perspektiven aus Belgien, Bulgarien, der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Italien, Spanien, der Türkei und dem Vereinigten Königreich ergänzt. Mit Beiträgen von Claudia Candelmo, Carmine Conte, Francisco Javier Donaire Villa, Arolda Elbasani, Leonard Amaru Feil, Francesco Luigi Gatta, Chad Heimrich, Markus Kotzur, Annalisa Morticelli, David Moya, Claudia Pretto, Andrea Romano, David Fernandez Rojo, Senada Šelo Šabić, Valentina Savazzi, Ülkü Sezgi Sözen und Catharina Ziebritzki.

The concept of security has traditionally referred to the status of sovereign states in a closed international system. In this system the state is assumed to be both the object of security and the primary provider of security. Threats to the state's security are understood as threats to its political autonomy in the system. The major international institutions that emerged after the Second World War were built around this idea. When the founders of the United Nations spoke of collective security, they were referring primarily to state security and to the coordinated system that would be necessary in order to avoid the 'scourge of war'. But today, a wide range of security threats, both new and traditional, confront Europe, or at least as some would say.

This book examines the management of migratory flows in the Mediterranean within an international security perspective. The intense migratory flows registered during the year 2015 and the tragedies in the Mediterranean Sea have tested the mechanisms of the Union’s immigration and asylum policies and its ability to respond to humanitarian crises. Moreover, these flows of varying intensities and geographies represent a threat to the internal security of the EU and its member states. By using Spain and Italy as case studies, the author theorizes that the EU, given its inability to adopt and implement a common policy to effectively manage migratory flows on its Southern border, uses a deterrence strategy based on minimum common denominators.