By Alexandra Halsey-Storch
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

STRASBOURG, France–On Thursday, February 23, 2012, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that, “it is a violation for states to collectively expel migrants intercepted on high seas.”

In 2009, the subjects of the case, 11 Somali and 13 Eritrean nationals, boarded a boat and left for Italy in search of a better life. They were part of a larger group of about 200 migrants, including pregnant women and children. Just outside of Italian territorial waters, south of the Sicilian island of Lampedusa, Italian military vessels picked the migrants up and took them to Tripoli, Libya’s capital. There, they were handed over to Libyan authorities who incarcerated them for at least several months.

This procedure was arranged by then-Italian President, Silvio Berlusconi and Libya’s then-dictator, Moammar Ghadafi, in an effort to “stem the huge tide of immigration to Italy.”  Under this course of action, about 1,000 migrants were “forcibly returned to Libya by the Italian Cost Guard,” according to the United Nations.

The attorney for the African migrants alleged that this bi-lateral agreement between the two countries violated Article 3, Article 4 of the Protocol Number 4, and Article 13 of the Geneva Convention thereby violating their human right to seek political asylum. The European Court of Human Rights agreed.

The Court Opinion recognized that, through the bi-lateral agreement, Italy attempted to alleviate some of the problems associated with a great influx of migrants; however, the Court went on to articulate that a State is not absolved of its “obligation not to remove any person who would run the risk of being subjected to treatment prohibited under Article 3 in the receiving country.”

Article 3, which governs civil armed conflict, prohibits members of the armed forces from engaging in “violence to life and person, in particular murder…mutilation, cruel treatment and torture” against civilians and innocent bystanders.

Looking back to the “situation prevailing in Libya” at the time migrants were forced there in 2009, the Court determined that they could have been subjected to the aforementioned Article 3 prohibitions. Moreover, bringing the African migrants to Libya exposed the migrants to the “risk of arbitrary return to their countries of origin,” also in violation of Article 3. The Court determined that in 2009 Somalia remained a place of “widespread insecurity” and individuals in Eritrea “faced being tortured and detained in inhuman conditions merely for having left the country.”

The court also ruled that a country is not permitted, under Article 4 of Protocol Number 4, to collectively expel migrants captured at sea, iterating that, “we have long expressed alarm at the interception and collective expulsion of migrants, often risking their lives on the high seas, without opportunity for an individual examination of their cases.”

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, “cheered” the Court’s decision and called on “all states to recognize and respect the fundamental rights of all migrants, which are guaranteed by international law.” She also encouraged states to consider “human rights and protections enshrined by international law” when writing migration policies and laws.

For more information, please visit:

The United Nations – Rights of Migrants Upheld by European Court – 24 Feb. 2012

European Court of Human Rights – Hirsi Jamaa and Others v. Italy – 23 Feb. 2012