Itamar Mann A new approach to defending the human rights of migrants TED Fellows
[SHAPE YOUR FUTURE]
A decade ago,
after a peaceful revolution toppled
the longtime Tunisian dictator Ben Ali,
I was sitting in an orange grove
outside of Athens, Greece.
Undocumented migrants were hiding there.
I came to interview them
about human rights abuses
they had suffered while entering Europe.
One of them, a Tunisian fellow
in a leather jacket, explained.
The people who overthrew Ben Ali,
they want democracy and a dignified life.
“We, who have crossed the Mediterranean,
want democracy and a dignified life.”
What is the difference?
The migrant is a kind of revolutionary.
This idea stuck with me
and informed my work as a lawyer
and a scholar ever since.
As Middle Eastern revolutions
turned into civil wars,
the refugee crisis unfolded
in the Mediterranean.
This exacerbated political pressures
against asylum seekers.
Initially, the European Court
of Human Rights
took a strong stand
against border violence.
In 2012, the court decided
that Italy cannot turn asylum seekers
back from the Mediterranean
to dangerous Libyan territory,
without first hearing them.
The human rights community cheered.
I was not one of those who cheered.
In my scholarship,
I predicted that this kind of decision
could also generate bad results.
States determined to enforce
their own borders
could turn back asylum seekers
even before they enter the supervision
of their own courts.
I was regretfully correct.
In recent years,
the Italians have relied on Libyan
militias to do their dirty work.
So eager are some European governments
to ditch their own
human rights obligations,
they’ve equipped and armed Libyan militia,
ignoring their rampant use of torture.
This is also why, since January 2014,
more than 34,000 migrants have died
by drowning in the Mediterranean.
And since COVID-19 began,
the militarized border
in the Mediterranean
has become in some ways even more extreme.
But how does the militarized border
cause deaths by drowning?
I’d like to illustrate by a reference
to a case I’m currently working on.
On November 6, 2017,
a group of asylum seekers
left the Libyan coast
and traveled through the Mediterranean,
hoping to reach Europe.
As the overcrowded boat
started to break down,
they sent a distress signal,
and under international law,
states are obligated to facilitate
the rescue of vessels in distress.
Now, a strange confrontation followed.
Two vessels, not one,
came to pick up
the asylum seekers in distress.
One of them was sailing
under a European flag,
its crew in civilian clothing.
The other was a Libyan vessel
with its crew armed
and in the very uniform of the government
that these people had fled.
For the asylum seekers,
the choice was clear.
Many jumped into the water,
determined at all costs
not to let the Libyans pick them up.
Twenty people drowned,
victims of a contemporary struggle
for liberation across borders.
What I didn’t predict a few years back
was the courageous response
of civil society volunteers
such as members of Sea-Watch,
who have literally inserted their bodies
between the Libyan forces
and the migrants in the water.
Crucially, they’ve also
brought back images
from cameras on board and body cams.
These images allowed my colleagues,
Charles Heller and Lorenzo Pezzani
to visually reconstruct
the events of November 2017.
When they came to my team and me
asking that we go back to the European
Court of Human Rights,
I was hesitant.
States always have ways to circumvent
progressive human rights decisions,
but the evidence spoke for itself.
With my colleagues Violeta Moreno-Lax
and Loredana Leo,
we filed the case at the European
Court of Human Rights.
We argue that Italy, as well as Europe,
cannot rely on Libyan militia
to sidestep their own accountability.
On a high level of generality,
the question is when is a point
of contact established
between a person in need of protection
and a state that can protect them.
I’ve called this moment
the human rights encounter.
It is a dramatic moment
in which legal commitments
are put to an existential test.
It’s not about human rights law generally,
but a particular person
in a particular time.
About simple commitments
we have to each other as persons.
It is not merely by chance
that the sea becomes the environment
for this large-scale struggle
for liberation across borders.
As for the court, it has recognized
the human rights encounter,
when it’s physical and direct.
In the case I just told you about,
we go further.
Even when mediated by technology
or by proxy forces,
the underlying commitments
to human rights should not change.
In my organization,
the Global Legal Action Network,
we pursue this case I told you about
as part of a strategic litigation program.
We consider international law
and the laws of many countries.
We collaborate with researchers
and activists who use
cutting edge technologies
to document violations
across many borders.
As war, persecution
and climate change continue,
we believe this strategy will redefine
the future of human rights lawyering.
The future of human rights lawyering
is not only about a struggle
against one corrupt leader or another.
It’s also about questions concerning
how do we all inhabit
this planet together?
Thank you.