The Central Mediterranean Route: Law Enforcement Without the Rule of Law

Abstract

It could be successfully argued that there is a general obligation to save lives in danger at sea and that this obligation is moral in nature. Such reasoning, however, is not the specific aim of this paper. Instead, this paper focuses on the legal obligations of the European Union (EU), its Member States, other neighbouring countries, and the EU Border and Coast Guard, towards migrants attempting the risky journey to Europe, in order to find out whether there are any legal steps that can be taken in order to help eliminate deaths in the Mediterranean. The article focuses on the main International Conventions on maritime law, international human rights law, international asylum law, the relevant legislation and regulations of the European Union and Italian law, offering an assessment on the legality of the EU border control operations at sea. The main argument of this paper is that the European policy on the enforcement of border control at sea fails to respect the basic principle of legality, and therefore it is against the Rule of Law.