From “Angels” to “Vice Smugglers”: the Criminalization of Sea Rescue NGOs in Italy

Abstract

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have played a crucial role in conducting Search and Rescue (SAR) operations off the Libyan coast, assisting almost 120,000 migrants between 2014 and 2019. Their activities, however, have been increasingly criticized. The accusation that NGOs facilitate irregular migration has escalated into investigations by Italian and Maltese courts and various policy initiatives restricting non-governmental ships and their access to European ports. Although all NGOs investigated to date have been acquitted, the combination of criminal investigations and policy restrictions that has taken place in Italy since 2017 has severely hindered non-governmental SAR operations. Given the humanitarian repercussions of reducing NGOs’ presence at sea, the merits and shortcomings of the arguments underlying the criminalization of non-governmental maritime rescue warrant in-depth research. To that end, this article fulfils two interrelated tasks. First, it provides a genealogy of the accusation against NGOs and the ensuing combination of legal criminalization, policy restrictions, and social stigmatization in restraining their activities. Second, it uses quantitative data to show that empirically verifiable accusations like the claim that NGOs serve as a pull factor of migration, thereby causing more people to day at sea, are not supported by available evidence. By doing so, our study sheds new light onto the criminalization of humanitarianism and its implications.

United to rescue? Humanitarian role conceptions and NGO–NGO interactions in the Mediterranean Sea

“…Although Cap Anamur conducted a sea rescue operation in the Mediterranean in 2005, indictment by an Italian court caused the organisation to close its doors (Cuttitta 2018, p. 638). Initially welcomed by Italian authorities, the sea rescue NGOs operating in the Mediterranean since 2014 have also suffered growing criminalisation (Allsopp et al 2020, Cusumano and Villa 2020, Tazzioli 2018. The criminalisation of solidarity at sea has exacerbated the dilemmas attached to non-governmental maritime rescue, widening NGOs' disagreement on the extent to which SAR can and should be conducted in accordance with humanitarian principles.…”

“…Since mid-2017, Italian authorities have sought to increasingly restrain NGOs' activities, asking all NGOs to sign a code of conduct whose provisions included the dispatch of Italian police officers aboard their ships. One of the non-signatory NGOsthe German youth organisation Jugend Rettethad its boat impounded for allegedly abetting illegal immigration soon thereafter (Cusumano and Villa 2020). The criminalisation of SAR NGOs culminated in the summer of 2018, when Italy declared its ports closed to all foreign-flagged vessels (Berti 2020, McDowell 2020.…”

“…Accordingly, its crews refrained from producing video footage that could be used as court evidence against suspect human smugglers, a behaviour they considered incompatible with the humanitarian principle of independence (Cuttitta 2018). Moreover, MSF declined signing the 2017 code of conduct, flagging the boarding of police officers on their vessels as an unacceptable violation of the principle of independence and the prohibition to carry arms in any MSF mission worldwide (Cusumano and Villa 2020). As the next sections show, MSF developed an especially close relationship with the other NGOs that shared their disapproval of European migration policies.…”

“…Since 2017, the Italian government has imposed restrictions on NGOs' activities, seeking to co-opt humanitarians in the fight against human smuggling. Initially praised as "angels" and "heroes", sea rescue NGOs have been increasingly criticised as a "pull factor" of irregular migration, facing a criminalisation process that culminated into the confiscation of several ships (Allsopp et al 2020, Cusumano andVilla 2020). Consequently, the Mediterranean Sea has not only become a new humanitarian space, but also a discursive battlefield over the meaning of humanitarianism and the appropriateness of assisting irregular migrants at state borders.…”

“…650-51), and the normative dilemmas attached to non-governmental sea rescue (Cusumano andPattison 2018, McDowell 2020). Recent research has also critically examined the criminalisation of maritime humanitarian workers and its implications (Fekete 2018, Tazzioli 2018, Cusumano and Villa 2020, Gordon and Larsen 2020. All scholarship to date, however, has mainly focused on sea rescue NGOs' relationship with state actors.…”