Browsing by Author "Faurie, Leena"

The migration situation in the Mediterranean has been broadly publicized in global media over the past 5 years. The situation has arguably been branded the single most pressing migration crisis facing Europe at current and to be sure, the facts and trends have given cause for alarm – the consistently high number of migrant deaths at sea, the high burden on coastal states, and the concomitant reluctance if not outright refusal of states to adhere to moral humanitarian principles are all features of the current situation in the Mediterranean. The rescue of migrants at sea is governed by a fragmentary and complicated system of rules, actors, and instruments that both coexist and come into conflict with one another. While the responsibilities of states are codified in international legal instruments, it would appear that their actions, backed by domestic legislation, often clash with the moral codes of humanitarian and refugee rights. This thesis will attempt to demonstrate, using particularly the cases of the rescue vessel Aquarius as illustrative examples, the complexity of the international legal system and the discrepancies between, or at worst the decoupling of, different legal orders and between international and national (legal) action, and to view this complexity through a perspective of inter-legality. This thesis will inspect the international, regional and national legal instruments and legislation that have a bearing on the rescue of migrants in the Mediterranean through the examples of two rescue operations carried out in 2018 by an NGO-operated vessel, the Aquarius, and will argue that the example of the Aquarius provides an apt illustration of inter-legality at play.