Humanitarianism at the Border: Criminalisation of migrant search and rescue operations in Southern Europe

8月2日，大约有45人在海上漂流了6天，在马耳他和希腊的搜救区之间漂流。两国海事当局都收到了报警电话热线的警报，但都拒绝提供协助（Alarmphone, 2022）。一切照旧。欧洲当局一贯拒绝履行救助海上遇险人员的责任，不提供援助或拖延救援。欧盟（EU）投资了一项昂贵的计划，以避免在海上营救移民，目的是阻止移民抵达欧洲大陆。战略包括与第三国达成协议，防止越境，并将其在地中海的资产从船只转移到没有搜救义务的无人机（人权观察，2022年）。即使在西班牙这个唯一拥有民事和公共海上救援机构的欧盟国家，西班牙政府也一直在对该机构的协调进行改革，导致援助延误，导致死亡率上升（Luna Vives， 2021年）。与此同时，欧盟反欺诈办公室透露，欧盟边境和海岸警卫局（Frontex）“掩盖并帮助资助希腊寻求庇护者的非法遣返”（Spiegel, 2022）。从历史上看，地中海80%的死亡和失踪事件发生在地中海中部航线（国际移民组织，2022年）。2022年在同一路线上的死亡人数已达到907人，自2014年以来已知的死亡人数已超过2万人（国际移民组织，2022年）。然而，“现实情况很可能更糟，因为潜在的沉船事故没有目击者”（SOS mediterran<s:1>, Sea Watch and MSF, 2022）。在这种背景下，SAR非政府组织的角色已经从纯粹的人道主义转变为作为欧洲海上政策后果的见证人，通过“提供证据证明不是海洋在杀人，而是欧盟边境政权及其死亡政治”（Dadusc和Denaro， 2021）。显然，移民面临着刑事定罪的最严重后果，他们要么被淹死，要么在海上消失，要么被强行遣返利比亚，而搜救志愿者和工作人员也越来越多地因为他们的团结工作而面临刑事迫害。五年前，第一艘民用船队的船只被扣留。在2016年至2017年期间，Iuventa号上的船员被指控“协助和教唆未经授权进入意大利”，在海上拯救了1.4万名遇险人员。如今，这些指控并没有撤销，如果罪名成立，他们可能面临最高20年的监禁。除了扣留船只和对搜救人员和非政府组织提起刑事和行政诉讼外，南欧成员国还在寻找其他方法，例如通过港口国管制检查，阻碍地中海的搜救能力。然而，对于后者，欧洲法院（European Court of Justice） 2022年8月的一项裁决明确表示，尽管船舶检查是必要的，但对非政府搜救组织（SAR NGO）船只的扣押不能基于任意原因，包括船上“太多”获救人员或缺乏船舶船旗国不存在的证书（Sea Watch, 2022）。长期以来，法律学者一直认为，在移民背景下，这些针对活动人士和非政府组织的刑事化企图是移民犯罪的一部分：在过去30年里，一个明显的趋势是，各国对移民犯罪实施的刑事制裁激增。在这一理论框架内，该项目调查了自愿搜索和救援行动的刑事定罪，审查：1)来自欧盟协调员一揽子计划和各国对其的解释的法规，实践和法律，用于限制和/或将自愿海上救援定为刑事犯罪；2)海事志愿者如何理解他们在海上救援中的角色和参与；3)在限制日益增加的情况下，在地中海开展海上救援任务的志愿组织。

On August 2nd, approximately 45 persons had been in distress at sea for 6 days, drifting between the Maltese and Greek search and rescue (SAR) zones. Maritime authorities from both countries were alerted by the Alarmphone hotline, but both refused to assist (Alarmphone, 2022). This is business as usual. European authorities consistently refuse to uphold their duty to rescue persons in distress at sea by omitting assistance or delaying rescues. The European Union (EU) has invested in an expensive plan to avoid rescuing migrants at sea with the goal of preventing arrivals to the continent. Strategies include agreements with third countries to prevent crossings and switching their assets in the Mediterranean from ships to drones with no SAR obligations (Human Rights Watch, 2022). Even in Spain, the only EU country with a civil and public sea rescue agency, Spain's government has been implementing changes to the coordination of the agency that have led to delays in assistance, resulting in higher death rates (Luna Vives, 2021). Meanwhile, the EU's anti-fraud office revealed that the EU's Border and Coastguard Agency (Frontex) 'covered up and helped to finance illegal pushbacks of asylum-seekers in Greece' (Spiegel, 2022). Historically, 80% of the deaths and disappearances in the Mediterranean Sea have been recorded in the Central Mediterranean route (IOM, 2022). The death toll for 2022 in the same route has reached 907 victims, and it stands at over 20,000 known victims since 2014 (IOM, 2022). However, 'the reality is most likely to be worse, due to potential shipwrecks without witness' (SOS Mediterranée, Sea Watch and MSF, 2022). In this context, the role of SAR NGOs has switched from purely humanitarian to acting as witnesses of the consequences of European policies at sea, by 'bring[ing] evidence that it is not the sea that is killing people, but the EU border regime and its necropolitics' (Dadusc and Denaro, 2021). While it is clear that migrants are the ones facing the worst consequences of criminalisation, by being left to drown and disappear at sea or forcibly returned to Libya, SAR volunteers and workers are increasingly facing criminal persecution for their solidarity work. Five years ago, the first ship from the civil fleet was detained. The crew onboard the Iuventa was accused of 'aiding and abetting unauthorized entry into Italy' for rescuing 14,000 people from distress at sea between 2016-2017. Today, those charges haven't been dropped and, if convicted, they could face up to 20 years in prison. Besides detaining ships and opening criminal and administrative proceedings against SAR crew and NGOs, Southern European Member States are also finding other ways to hinder SAR capacity in the Mediterranean, for example, through Port State Control inspections. For the latter, however, an August 2022 ruling of the European Court of Justice has made clear that, while ship inspections are necessary, the detention of SAR NGO vessels cannot be subjected to arbitrary reasons, including for having 'too many' rescued people on board or for lacking certificates that do not exist under the ship's flag state (Sea Watch, 2022). These criminalisation attempts against activists and non-governmental organisations within the context of migration have long been identified by legal scholarship as part of crimmigration: a clear trend in the last 30 years describing the proliferation of criminal sanctions for migration offences imposed by states. Within this theoretical framework, the project investigates the criminalisation of voluntary search and rescue operations examining: 1) Regulations, practices and laws deriving from the EU Facilitators' package and states' interpretation of it, used to curtail and/or criminalise voluntary sea rescue; 2) How maritime volunteers conceptualise their roles and involvement in sea rescue; and, 3) Voluntary organisations operating sea rescue missions in the Mediterranean amid increasing restrictions.