The EU as a Global Actor in Search and Rescue at Sea: Melanie Fink and Kristof Gombeer at ESIL Joint Colloquium
On 7 November 2024, an ESIL Joint Colloquium took place on the topic ‘The EU as an (Imperfect) Global Actor in Search and Rescue (SAR) at Sea? – EU (in)Action in Troubled Waters’.
The event was organised by the European Society of International Law (ESIL) Interest Group ‘The EU as a Global Actor’ (IG EUGLOBAL), in partnership with the Interest Group on Migration and Refugee Law (IG MigRefLaw). The programme included perspectives from inter alia the law of the sea, human rights law, and criminal law. From the Europa Institute, Melanie Fink joined as a co-convenor of the Interest Group EUGLOBAL and chaired a session on the human rights implications of European SAR policies. Kristof Gombeer joined as the keynote speaker of the day, speaking about ‘The potential of European Union integration on search and rescue at sea’.
The obligation to save lives at sea requires States – and other contracting parties such as the EU – to deploy or arrange for the necessary SAR capacities. Still, practice shows that there is inadequate SAR capacity deployed by either Member States or EU entities such as Frontex or the military operation EUNAVFOR MED IRINI. Hence NGOs deploying SAR assets chipped in to (at least partially) fill in missing rescue capacities from coastal States. This move, however, has in the past years prompted certain EU countries to criminalise search and rescue efforts in the Mediterranean Sea carried out by NGOs and to take various measures against such non-state entities – with one of the reasons being facilitating irregular migration.
Although the European Commission issued recommendations on the interpretation of the optional humanitarian exemption clause under EU anti-smuggling law as well as on cooperation among Member States concerning SAR operations carried out by private vessels, coupled with a new legal proposal to revamp the EU ‘facilitators package’, legal uncertainties remain and grey zones in practices out there prevail. Some even contend that EU law, policy and practices undermine globally agreed standards as stemming from international (hard and soft) law. Recently, a coalition of civil society organisations also called for the EU not to be complicit in the loss of lives at sea at its external borders.
Against this backdrop, the joint colloquium sought to shed light on the possible tensions between EU actions and international legal standards governing SAR.