Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MARESIA (Maritime Rescue. International Norm Contestation and Seaborne Migration to Italy and Australia)
Reporting period: 2020-09-01 to 2022-08-31
Between 2013 and 2020, irregular maritime migration caused at least 17,000 deaths in the Southern Mediterranean basin alone. While crucial to save the lives of those in distress at sea, maritime Search and Rescue (SAR) operations have been increasingly criticized. Despite being signatories to all relevant international conventions and facing mixed flows comprising of both economic migrants and refugees, Australia and Italy have developed different (although eventually converging) approaches to irregular maritime migration. Not only governments, but also different seafaring organizations have understood and complied with the duty to rescue in different although eventually converging ways. What explains variations in rescue policies across countries, over time, and between maritime actors?
By conceptualizing maritime rescue as a contested international norm, this project has offered novel insights into this puzzle. Specifically, the project highlights the increasing salience of discourses problematizing maritime rescue as a pull factor of migration inadvertently causing more deaths and hindering border control by facilitating human smuggling. These discourses, advocated by a broad coalition of actors, have shaped an increasingly narrow understanding of the maritime rescue norm, restricted to the obligation to assist sinking boats and disembarking their passengers to the closest port.
By conceptualizing maritime rescue as a contested international norm, this project has offered novel insights into this puzzle. Specifically, the project highlights the increasing salience of discourses problematizing maritime rescue as a pull factor of migration inadvertently causing more deaths and hindering border control by facilitating human smuggling. These discourses, advocated by a broad coalition of actors, have shaped an increasingly narrow understanding of the maritime rescue norm, restricted to the obligation to assist sinking boats and disembarking their passengers to the closest port.
The project has sought to conceptualize maritime rescue as a contested international norm, identify the main discourses used to restrict its interpretation, and map how this duty has been internalized by the security forces and seafaring organizations operating in maritime regions regularly crossed by undocumented migrants. Accordingly, the first building bloc of the process has consisted of a theoretical conceptualization of maritime rescue as a contested norm, tracing its formation and institutionalization. Despite being codified in several widely ratified international convention, the duty to rescue those in distress at sea and disembark them to a place of safety has remained vague, leaving the questions of what amounts to distress and how to identify a place of safety unanswered. These uncertainties became apparent as irregular maritime mobility gained momentum. To address the vagueness of the norm international organizations and domestic courts advocated a broad interpretation of the duty to rescue, calling for the disembarkation of all those in distress at sea in a place where they could safely apply for international protection. While consistent with basic human rights and refugee law principles like the right to life and to asylum, this broad interpretation fuelled different forms of contestation.
As a second step, the project has therefore analyized the contestation processes triggered by irregular maritime mobility by identifying the content and salience of the main discourses problematising the duty to rescue migrants in distress at sea. As widely noted by norms scholars, securitization processes legitimize deviations from normal behavior and established legal principles. Consequently, the securitization of migration – namely the process whereby human mobility is framed as an existential threat to a specific referent object – has served as the pivot of different contestation processes. The maritime rescue norm is no exception. Specifically, three different referent objects can be identified: the seafarers and security forces engaging in rescue operations, the places of safety where those rescued are to be disembarked, and the people rescued at sea themselves.
Last, the project has mapped how different actors have interpreted and internalized the rescue norm, concentrating on the public, commercial and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) operating in the Southern Mediterranean maritime region. Specifically, the project has highlighted how Italian and European security forces’ interpretations of the duty to rescue has increasingly diverged from NGOs, which have become increasingly criminalized as facilitators of undocumented migration. The concern that proactive rescue operations would serve as a pull factor of irregular migration was pivotal to more restrictive forms of maritime migration governance, increasingly geared on the externalization of rescue operations and border enforcement to actors like the Libyan coast guard and navy.
Results have been published in two impact-factors appeared on the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, disseminated across the academic community by participating in four international conferences and three workshops, and publicized through webinars and media interviews.
As a second step, the project has therefore analyized the contestation processes triggered by irregular maritime mobility by identifying the content and salience of the main discourses problematising the duty to rescue migrants in distress at sea. As widely noted by norms scholars, securitization processes legitimize deviations from normal behavior and established legal principles. Consequently, the securitization of migration – namely the process whereby human mobility is framed as an existential threat to a specific referent object – has served as the pivot of different contestation processes. The maritime rescue norm is no exception. Specifically, three different referent objects can be identified: the seafarers and security forces engaging in rescue operations, the places of safety where those rescued are to be disembarked, and the people rescued at sea themselves.
Last, the project has mapped how different actors have interpreted and internalized the rescue norm, concentrating on the public, commercial and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) operating in the Southern Mediterranean maritime region. Specifically, the project has highlighted how Italian and European security forces’ interpretations of the duty to rescue has increasingly diverged from NGOs, which have become increasingly criminalized as facilitators of undocumented migration. The concern that proactive rescue operations would serve as a pull factor of irregular migration was pivotal to more restrictive forms of maritime migration governance, increasingly geared on the externalization of rescue operations and border enforcement to actors like the Libyan coast guard and navy.
Results have been published in two impact-factors appeared on the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, disseminated across the academic community by participating in four international conferences and three workshops, and publicized through webinars and media interviews.
Evidence testifying the existence of a moral and religious duty to rescue can already be found in a large number of ancient texts from the Talmud to the Aeneid. This imperative was first conceptualized as a legal duty in the writing of early legal philosophers like Vattel and Grotius. The outcry prompted by widely advertised early 20th century tragedies like the sinking of the Titanic was pivotal to the institutionalization of the maritime rescue norm, codified in a host of treaties starting from the 1910 International Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules of Law relating to Assistance and Salvage at Sea to the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Despite this institutionalisation process, a comparative analysis of Italy and Australia highlights the existence of stark variations in the interpretation and internalization of the maritime rescue norm. Discourses criticizing the duty to rescue as a pull factor of migration and a hindrance to effective border control were prominent in Australia since the early 2000s, but gained salience in Italy only from 2017 onwards. Accordingly, the Australian Navy and Coast Guard have interpreted the obligation to rescue as a duty to only assist boats in imminent danger of sinking and disembark them to the nearest port, irrespective of individuals’ right to apply for asylum. Conversely, the Italian Navy and Coast Guard developed a broader understanding of boat in distress, extended to all overloaded migrant boats. Moreover, in accordance with International Maritime Organization Guidelines and European Court of Human Rights jurisprudence, these organizations included in the duty to rescue the obligation to disembark migrants in a place of safety where they can apply for asylum. In 2018, the appointment of a new Italian cabinet with a restrictive approach to migration prompted a narrower interpretation of what amounts to distress, which became more narrowly focused on sinking boats and therefore more similar to Australia’s. While occasionally censored other countries and the European Court of Human Rights, Italy’s approach has been consistent with broader European Union policy, increasingly geared on the externalization of maritime rescue and border control to the security forces of countries of transit and departure.
These findings have important policy and societal implications, helping understand the conditions under which legal and moral duties become increasingly contested and the implications of these discursive processes. More specifically, studying why and when the duty to rescue at sea becomes contested through discourses that often lack empirical support may help states develop evidence-based maritime migration governance strategies and communicate them more effectively to the public.
Despite this institutionalisation process, a comparative analysis of Italy and Australia highlights the existence of stark variations in the interpretation and internalization of the maritime rescue norm. Discourses criticizing the duty to rescue as a pull factor of migration and a hindrance to effective border control were prominent in Australia since the early 2000s, but gained salience in Italy only from 2017 onwards. Accordingly, the Australian Navy and Coast Guard have interpreted the obligation to rescue as a duty to only assist boats in imminent danger of sinking and disembark them to the nearest port, irrespective of individuals’ right to apply for asylum. Conversely, the Italian Navy and Coast Guard developed a broader understanding of boat in distress, extended to all overloaded migrant boats. Moreover, in accordance with International Maritime Organization Guidelines and European Court of Human Rights jurisprudence, these organizations included in the duty to rescue the obligation to disembark migrants in a place of safety where they can apply for asylum. In 2018, the appointment of a new Italian cabinet with a restrictive approach to migration prompted a narrower interpretation of what amounts to distress, which became more narrowly focused on sinking boats and therefore more similar to Australia’s. While occasionally censored other countries and the European Court of Human Rights, Italy’s approach has been consistent with broader European Union policy, increasingly geared on the externalization of maritime rescue and border control to the security forces of countries of transit and departure.
These findings have important policy and societal implications, helping understand the conditions under which legal and moral duties become increasingly contested and the implications of these discursive processes. More specifically, studying why and when the duty to rescue at sea becomes contested through discourses that often lack empirical support may help states develop evidence-based maritime migration governance strategies and communicate them more effectively to the public.