CYIL vol. 8 (2017)

CYIL 8 ȍ2017Ȏ REGULAR MIGRATION THROUGH SOUTH MEDITERRANEAN ROUTE … immediately at the nearest port where their lives and freedoms would not be threatened, providing them with information, offering care and support, processing their asylum claims equitably. From what we know on the conditions in Libya, this country cannot be a port of disembarkation.” 38 The High Commissioner further stresses that “Limiting departures from the Libyan coast simply means accepting and legitimizing the human suffering prevailing in Libya and pushing people back to conditions where migrants suffer arbitrary detention, torture, ill-treatment, unlawful killings, trafficking and enforced disappearance. Migrants in Libya are exploited as free labour and vulnerable to other forms of contemporary slavery; migrant women are at risk of rape and other sexual violence.” 39 On the other hand, the European Council in its Malta summit has stressed that the EU priority will be to work with Libya aiming to stabilise the country and to build the capacity of the Libyan authorities, so they could “acquire control over the land and sea borders and to combat transit and smuggling activities.” 40 It was further outlined that it is important to work with Libyan regional and local communities and with international organisations active in the country. 41 Seeking to ensure adequate reception capacities and conditions in Libya for migrants, together with the UNHCR and IOM is a priority for the EU. 42 These considerations of Libya being a safe place or not are closely related to the issues of human rights and refugee rights, namely the principle of non-refoulement. 43 On one hand, it is important to accept the people asking for refugee status and provide them with the possibility to start a life free of persecutions and torture, as the situation in Libya of the ensuring of human rights is poor. That is the principle of non-refoulement, which requires, according to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol, “No Contracting State shall expel or return (“refouler”) a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his [or her] life or freedom would be threatened on account of his [or her] race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.” 44 On the other hand, the persons rescued or intercepted at sea are not only of Libyan origin. Therefore, one should look into the situation of the countries of origin firstly, and secondly, the possibility to cross through Libya attracts people to travel long distances and face more human rights violations and makes them victims of crime of migrant smuggling, puts risk on their very lives. Is this possibility to travel but the danger of peril not infringing the rights of the African people more than the return of them to African soil? This is a question for discussion. In this whole situation both solutions – saving people in the Mediterranean and bringing them to Italy (the travel through the 38 OHCHR. Malta Summit: “Is Libya the right disembarking point for migrants?”. Managing migration along the Central Mediterranean Route . Malta, Friday 3 February 2017. http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/ DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=21140&LangID=E#sthash.VHXE5ZgL.dpuf accessed 30 May 2017. 39 Ibid. 40 European Council. Malta Declaration by the members of the European Council on the external aspects of migration: addressing the Central Mediterranean route . Press release, 03 February 2017 http://www.consilium.europa.eu/ press-releases-pdf/2017/2/47244654402_en.pdf accessed 30 May 2017. 43 The question of the principle of non-refoulement and the concept of state jurisdiction in rescue operations is extensivelly discussed in GAMMELTOFT-HANSEN, Thomas. The Refugee, the Sovereign and the Sea: EU Interdiction Policies in the Mediterranean. DIIS Working Paper no 2008/6 https://www.econstor.eu/ bitstream/10419/44650/1/560120990.pdf, accessed 30 May 2017. 44 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, U.N.T.S. 189, entered into force 22 April 1954. 41 Ibid. 42 Ibid.

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