Humanitarians or Smugglers? European Union border securitisation and the criminalisation of humanitarian aid and acts of solidarity with migrants

这项研究将解决以下问题：围绕2002年《便利指令》国内解释的模棱两可是否促进了声援欧洲联盟(欧盟)移民和难民的刑事定罪。这是一个重要的问题，需要进行详细的学术研究。在整个欧盟，人权捍卫者(HRD)(包括人道主义工作者、活动家或其他帮助移民的公民社会行为者)面临刑事指控和被拘留的案件正在增加，同时边境安全措施也在增加。这种明显的对移民团结的刑事化在不同的国家背景下采取了不同的形式，在某种意义上，似乎与非法移民的刑事化本身相互关联。针对人力资源发展援助移民的刑事案件并不是孤立发生的。欧盟国家越来越多地利用拘留设施关押移民，同时减少投入到主动搜救(SAR)上的资源。尽管欧洲人权法院、人权事务委员会和其他人权监督机构加强了审查(见2016年Khlaifia等人诉意大利案，关于反对移民拘留的声明，或A.S.和其他人诉意大利案，2021年，关于域外义务的审查)，但这种关切仍在继续。这些标志性的案例表明，这些边境证券化政策对帮助移民的人的工作产生了邪恶的影响。2015年，丹麦人利斯贝特·佐尼格因开车送一家叙利亚难民过桥前往瑞典而被判犯有人口走私罪(佐尼格，2016)。在法国，农民塞德里克·赫鲁因在家中接待寻求庇护者而于2017年被控“便利非法入境”，但在2020年被上诉法院宣判无罪(大赦国际，2020年)。在匈牙利，欧洲法院(ECJ)认定“阻止索罗斯”法将援助寻求庇护者定为刑事犯罪，违反了欧盟法律(见欧盟委员会诉匈牙利案，2021年)。在有争议的地中海路线上，政客和边境管理官员将民间社会搜救活动的存在列为非正常移民增加的一个拉动因素，并将人道主义救援与人口走私混为一谈(Franko，2021)。在希腊，这一高度政治化的叙述的影响可以在针对国际应急中心成员的案件中观察到，这些人在2018年因人口走私、间谍活动、洗钱和加入犯罪网络的指控而被捕后，在审前拘留了几个月(人权高专办，2021年)。意大利也发生了类似案件，2022年扣押了Iuventa的船只，2019年逮捕了Iuventa的船员，2019年逮捕了海洋观察(见ECCHR，2022年和人权观察，2019年)。为了分析团结犯罪并将其纳入背景，本研究项目将包括两个不同的分析阶段，并考虑三个案例研究国家：法国、希腊和意大利。第一阶段是对国内立法的理论分析，根据国内立法，声援移民的行为被定为符合国际人权义务和其他相关国际法律框架的犯罪行为，例如难民法和国际海洋法。这之后将进入第二阶段，包括与人力资源开发人员进行定性的关键信息提供人(KI)访谈。第一阶段的目标是找出相互冲突的法律框架存在的不确定性，这些法律框架允许各国将援助移民定为刑事犯罪。第二阶段旨在了解这种法律不确定性对人力资源开发人员开展工作的能力的影响，强调任何已察觉到的风险和潜在的潜在威慑作用。

This research will address the question of whether ambiguity around the domestic interpretationof the 2002 Facilitation Directive has promoted the criminalisation of solidarity with migrantsand refugees in the European Union (EU). This is an important issue which requires detailedacademic investigation. Across the EU, cases of human rights defenders (HRDs) (includinghumanitarian practitioners activists, or other civil society actors assisting migrants) facingcriminal charges and being detained are increasing alongside border securitisation measures.This apparent 'criminalisation of solidarity' with migrants has taken different forms acrossnational contexts and, in a sense, appears to be interrelated with the criminalisation of irregularmigration itself. Criminal cases against HRDs aiding migrants do not occur in isolation. EU Statesare increasingly utilising detention facilities to hold migrants while simultaneously decreasingthe resources invested in pro-active search and rescue (SAR). Despite growing scrutiny by theEuropean Court of Human Rights, the Human Rights Committee, and other human rightsmonitoring bodies (see Khlaifia and others v. Italy, 2016 for a statement against migrantdetention or A.S. and others v Italy, 2021 for a review of extraterritorial obligations), suchconcerns continue. Emblematic cases demonstrate the nefarious impact of these bordersecuritisation policies on the work of those aiding migrants. In 2015, Lisbeth Zornig, a DanishHRD was found guilty of human smuggling for driving a family of Syrian refugees across a bridgeto Sweden (Zornig, 2016). In France, farmer Cedric Herrou was charged in 2017 with 'facilitatingirregular entry' for hosting asylum seekers in his home, before being acquitted by a Court ofAppeals in 2020 (Amnesty International, 2020). In Hungary, the 'Stop Soros' law criminalisingassistance to asylum seekers was found by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to be in breach ofEU law (see European Commission v Hungary, 2021). Along the contested Mediterranean routes,politicians and FRONTEX border management officials have labelled the presence of civil societySAR activities as a pull-factor for increased irregular migration and have conflated humanitarianrescue with human smuggling (Franko, 2021). In Greece, the impact of this highly politicisednarrative can be observed in the case against the members of Emergency Response CentreInternational (ERCI), who spent several months in pre-trial detention after being arrested in 2018on charges of human smuggling, espionage, money laundering, and membership of a criminalnetwork (OHCHR, 2021). Similar cases have also occurred in Italy, with the seizure of vesselsand arrests of crew members of the Iuventa in 2022 and the Sea Watch in 2019 (see ECCHR,2022 and HRW, 2019). To analyse and contextualise the criminalisation of solidarity, thisresearch project will consist of two distinct analytical phases and consider three case studycountries: France, Greece, Italy. The first phase consists of a doctrinal analysis contrastingdomestic legislation under which acts of solidarity with migrants are criminalised withinternational human rights obligations and other relevant international legal frameworks, suchas refugee law and international law of the sea. This will be followed by a second phase,consisting of qualitative key informant (KI) interviews with HRDs. The objective of the first phaseis to identify the uncertainty around the conflicting legal frameworks allowing States tocriminalise assistance to migrants. The second phase seeks to understand the consequences ofthis legal uncertainty on the ability of HRDs to conduct their work, highlighting any perceivedrisks and potential hidden deterrent effect.