The Nexus between Securitization of the EU’s External Borders and Human Rights of Migrants

Masterarbeit, Fachbereich Zentrum für Europ. Integrationsforschung, 79 Seiten, engl.

Zusammenfassung:

In 2015, the European Union was slammed by the reverberations of its own migration policy instruments from the last two decades. Diem per diem, the figures of irregular entries at EU’s external borders reach new ceilings, accompanied by the number of lives lost in an attempt to reach haven on European soil. The International Organization for Migration targeted 40,000 victimized failed attempts to make irregular border crossings since the year 2000, out of which 22,000 lost their lives in strive to get to Europe, when with an aim to tackle the intensified irregular migration pressure at its external borders, the EU has responded with enhanced border management replicated through its instruments of securitization and externalization of migration policies. The rationale behind a restrictive dimension of EU’s migration policies was found in associating the mixed migratory flows comprising asylum seekers, refugees or labour migrants with security threat, terrorism, criminality and social conflict.

Surprisingly for the EU corridors and policy makers, the securitization approach when dealing with irregular migration did not prove to be the panacea for the problem. The weakness of EU-level response in addressing irregular border crossings resulted with egregious human rights abuses.2 The systemic flow of the EU’s border management and its incompatibility with human rights of migrants has become particularly evident in 2015, when the issue was publicly scrutinized and ferociously criticised by human rights activists after the world media has presented the real effects of such policies. The lack of human rights-based approach to migration resulted with thousands of dead bodies, plunging in the Mediterranean Sea and increased irregular border crossings of desperate migrants fleeing war and persecution.

Therefore, driven by the aim to understand the current systemic failures of EU’s migration management policies and identify the negative corollaries they produce towards human rights of migrants, this thesis explores six research questions and one leading hypothesis. After the conducted research, it was inferred that the main hypothesis was confirmed in claiming that “The externalization of migration border’s control and the securitization of EU’s external borders are having detrimental effects on human rights of migrants, especially on refugees and asylum seekers”.

In Chapter 1 are addressed two research questions “What is the genesis and which are the factors of securitizing migration as a threat?” and “What are the current political strategies on EU-level for curbing the irregular migration challenge?” It was established that the notion of securitizing the borders in order to corner migration influxes became a norm with incorporating legal obligations to Member States from the Schengen Convention of the 1990 and afterwards the EU Acquis within the Amsterdam Treaty of 1999. The securitization process appeared to be developing along the on-going Europeanization process. Additionally, the restrictive migration policy was implemented through the securitization of EU borders via a genuine process of “Berlinization” and militarization on one hand, and on the other hand via externalization of the border control, instrumented via readmission agreements, offshore visa facilities, detention centres and developments aid programs with third countries.

In Chapter 2 are tackled the following research questions - “To what extent are the securitization and externalization dimension of EU’s border management in compliance with the international human rights legal framework and the international refugee protection system?” and “Which are the latest migration developments and the most precarious irregular migratory routes?”. In this regards are explored the weaknesses of the very process of ‘externalization’ of migration management which converts asylum-seekers to irregular migrants. These practices are making the securitization-borders-migration nexus crowded by adding up human rights violations in the equation. Concerns in the same direction were raised for the mobility partnerships as an instrument of the GAMM framework, for their selectivity and failure to accentuate development instead of securitization policies. In the Report of the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, it is noted the mobility partnerships have been futile in their efforts as sophisticated political tool to strengthen dialogue and cooperation with non-European Union countries on matters related to migration and mobility. While exploring the hallways of irregular migration, FRONTEX identified four main routes, taken by 96.5% of irregular migrants to pave their way to EU: the Central Mediterranean, Eastern Mediterranean, Western Balkan and Western Mediterranean routes. Respectively to the reported detections of irregular border crossings, it was evident that the Central Mediterranean route is in these terms “Via Egnatia” with tripling figures of migration flows in comparison to the others.

Finally in Chapter 3 are elaborated the last two research questions “In what way is the European border management and protection system hampering the human rights of migrants, with a focus on refugees and asylum seekers?” and “Can Fortress Europe be justified upon the human costs of protecting borders?”. In this direction it is elaborated that the reinforcement of the border controls in EU and the externalization of control towards places of transit, located outside of Europe, increases the risk of fatality for migrants and jeopardises their rights, making them even more vulnerable. Moreover, the inter-regional migratory governance of migration flow established between Europe and Africa, widens the border-crossing market and increases the margin of discretion for making clandestine attempts for border crossings. Because of high-tech securitization of the existent borders, migrants make a shift in their migratory patterns and choose more dangerous routes with a parallel increase of the risk of their lives. Further on, it was concluded that the most dangerous consequence of the negligence from respecting the human rights framework is the 50-fold increase in migrants’ and refugees’ deaths, year by year, tolling in 2015. Therefore, the rationale behind Fortress Europe cannot be justified over the price of over 30, 000 dead refugees and migrants, who desperately attempted to reach or stay in Europe, if one references the numbers since the year 2000.

Concluding, securitization of EU’s external borders and externalization of border controls can be justified only with full respect of the fundamental rights and assuming and practicing the obligations stemming from the 1951 Refugee Convention. This reflects a shared responsibility of both the EU and the international community in tackling the urging humanitarian disaster happening at the Mediterranean corridor and devising migration management policies while prioritising the paradigm of human rights as a moral, humanitarian and a legal obligation to act upon.