CYIL vol. 13 (2022)

VIOLETA VASILIAUSKIENĖ CYIL 13 ȍ2022Ȏ no common UN SC action due to close cooperation of Belarus with Russia, a permanent member. From the short analysis carried out above we can state that most of the states who have commented on the situation and their opinion as expressed via international organisations all agree that a hybrid attack was carried out. The condemnation of pushback policy of Latvia, Lithuania and Poland is heard in the reports of NGOs and other experts, but looking into the opinion of the states, the condemnation is addressed to Belarus and Belarusian authorities using the migrants as a tool to influence EU actions. This opinion could indicate that deliberate actions by a state of creating large migrant flows allow for more stringent measures of protection of the border and justify exceptional measures towards migrant flows in emergency situations. In order to answer this question a broader analysis of state opinions would be necessary, that goes beyond the limits of this publication. Conclusions The migration crisis from Belarus was instigated by Belarusian regime in response to the EU sanctions after the diversion of Ryanair plane to Vilnius and subsequent arrest of Roman Protasevic. The flows of migrants increased due to actions of Belarusian state-owned travel and air companies, and put a strain on the infrastructure of neighbouring EU countries. The affected countries increased the protection of their borders which resulted in mounting tensions at the borders. The applied policy gave effect and the migration diminished. The hybrid nature of the Belarusian actions is evidenced by the fact that Belarus aimed to increase migration flows in order to put pressure on the EU and to create humanitarian crisis within border states, firstly, Lithuania, later Poland and Latvia. This as state-sponsored human trafficking was aimed at creating a humanitarian crisis to force the EU and its member states to accede to Belarus’s demands, namely ending their sanctions. The international legal acts regulating refugee protection, namely the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol do not regulate the question of entry into the country where asylum is sought, they presume that a person is already in the territory of the country. The jurisprudence of ECtHR defines the actions when the migrants trying to enter the territory are physically escorted back to the country where they came from as the exercise of state jurisdiction. The obligations of asylum and the actions taken by state authorities to protect the borders and the obligations under refugee law are under strain in particularly such situations where mass migration flows are orchestrated by the hostile bordering country, in this case, Belarus. The state practice will have to provide the guidance on the balance of conflicting interests in such cases. State opinions on the illegal migration in Belarus indicate that states qualify the actions of Belarus as infringement of human rights and as hybrid action which should be condemned. It remains to be seen what adaptation of the asylum rules will be developed by states in response to such state-incurred mass migration flows.

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