LITMIR.BIZ

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in Belgium; 84 who had found refuge in Holland, and 86 who had been admitted to France’.⁵

The second story is that of the MV Aquarius, run by SOS Méditerranée and Médecins Sans Frontières. Since 2016, this ship operated as a search-and-rescue vessel for asylum seekers and migrants in danger of drowning in the crossing from Libya to Europe, working in cooperation with the Italian Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre. On 10 June 2018, Matteo Salvini, the interior minister of Italy’s newly formed right-wing populist government, refused permission for Aquarius to dock with 629 rescued persons (including 123 unaccompanied minors, 11 younger children and seven pregnant women). Salvini claimed, contrary to the international law of rescue at sea, that Malta rather than Italy should accept those rescued – a demand that Malta vehemently rejected. Buoyed by popular support in Italy for a tough anti-immigrant policy, Salvini maintained his refusal, proclaiming that ‘Italy was saying “no to human trafficking, no to the business of illegal immigration”’.⁶ The stand-off was resolved only when Spain gave permission for Aquarius to dock in Valencia and agreed to accept those rescued persons on board. Italy’s actions took place against the background of economic austerity that followed the effects of the 2008 financial crash and the emergence or consolidation of right-wing national populist movements in the EU, as well as the failure of the Common European Asylum System to secure fair refugee responsibility sharing across its member states, a failure that had seen frontline states such as Italy under particular pressure.

      After these events Aquarius encountered further problems. First Gibraltar and, next, Panama, perhaps under pressure from the Italian government, revoked the registration it required to operate under their flag. In November 2018 Italian prosecutors, somewhat arbitrarily, ordered the seizure of the Aquarius to investigate charges that it had illegally dumped potentially hazardous waste at Italian ports (a charge rejected by SOS Méditerranée and Médecins Sans Frontières); the effect of this order was to deny Aquarius access to Italian waters. Such measures increased the pressure on the inadequately resourced Libyan coastguard at a time when the death toll from attempted crossings was, not coincidentally, at its highest in history. On 7 December, having been stranded in Marseille since early October, the Aquarius officially ceased operations with Médecins Sans Frontières, blaming this on ‘sustained attacks on search and rescue by European states’.⁷ During this period of stasis, an estimated 389 persons seeking to cross the Mediterranean have drowned, although the figure may well be higher.⁸ (It is likely that, by the time this book is published, things will have got worse, given the deteriorating situation in Libya.)

While the contexts in which these two sets of events took place are different, there are significant parallels, notably that, under conditions of economic austerity, potentials for national hostility towards people seeking refuge were mobilised by right-wing populist actors, cultivated for domestic political advantage and made to support restrictive policies against those in flight. However, whereas the story of the St Louis may be seen as one of far too many that contributed to motivating the establishment of the international refugee regime in the aftermath of the genocidal murders and mass displacements of the Second World War, the story of the Aquarius speaks to the contemporary limitations of this regime, in particular in securing international cooperation between states and safe passage for refugees. It is against the background of such stories that the question of what is owed to refugees and how their protection can be secured acquires its ethical urgency and its political salience.

Notes

      1 1. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, ‘Voyage of the St Louis’. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/voyage-of-the-st-louis.

      2 2. Ibid.

      3 3. Ibid.

      4 4. Ibid.

      5 5. Ibid.

      6 6. ‘Italy’s Matteo Salvini Shuts Ports to Migrant Rescue Ship’. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-44432056.

      7 7. ‘MSF Ship Aquarius Ends Migrant Rescues in Mediterranean’. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-46477158.

      8 8. Visit https://missingmigrants.iom.int/region/mediterranean.

Introduction

      We commit to a more equitable sharing of the burden and responsibility for hosting and supporting the world’s refugees.

      New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants (2016)

Today, as people flee civil wars, authoritarian states, persecution by state and non-state actors, famine and environmental disaster, the international refugee regime that was forged in the aftermath of global war and extended in the context of the independence struggles and post-independence conflicts of the second half of the twentieth century is creaking, perhaps cracking, under the strain. The images that we see, of overcrowded boats crossing the Mediterranean and drowned bodies washed up on Europe’s holidays beaches, or of caravans of displaced people trekking to the Mexican border with the United States – and the images that we generally don’t see, of people dying in desert crossings in Libya and Mexico, or of families warehoused in refugee camps across Africa and Asia¹ – have led the UN secretary general to speak of a global crisis of solidarity. Many in need of protection do not receive it, and even those who reach camps (or urban spaces) often fail to find security.²

Acknowledgement of the failings of our current political framework for responding to refugee crises and the need for a renewed approach to refugee protection found expression in the United Nations’ 2016 New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants, which highlighted the need for greater international cooperation and responsibility sharing.³ But what exactly is the nature of the responsibility that states owe to refugees? And what kinds of international cooperation are required? To raise these questions is to ask how we should approach refugee protection today. Who should count as a refugee and what is owed to persons with that status? Is it sufficient for the international community to provide funds to meet the basic humanitarian needs of refugees in the (typically neighbouring) states of immediate refuge? What weight should be given to the refugees’ own choices – exhibited, for example, in embarking on dangerous journeys to Europe or the United States? Under what conditions can refugees be repatriated to their own states? These are among the most pressing ethical questions in contemporary politics and it is the task of this book to provide a framework for addressing them.

      One pragmatic response to these questions can be found in the Global Compact on Refugees, a nonbinding agreement that the New York Declaration tasked the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) with drafting.⁴ Its objectives are to ease pressures on host countries and to expand access to the resettlement of refugees in other states, as well as to enhance refugee self-reliance and support conditions in countries of origin for the safe return of refugees. The adoption of this compact is a significant diplomatic achievement, although the challenge of securing the voluntary cooperation among the relevant actors that is required for implementing the compact will be considerably more demanding. But, if we are to evaluate responses to the contemporary predicaments of refugee protection, we need to step back from our immediate political context and engage in a deeper investigation of the institution of refugeehood.

Such a project is necessary not simply because the established refugee regime is under strain as a result of failures of international cooperation. One reason why it is necessary is, more fundamentally, that the figure of the refugee in contemporary politics (as well as in academic literature) is caught between two distinct and incompatible pictures of refugeehood – humanitarian and political – that give

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