New Technologies in International Law / Tymofeyeva, Crhák et al.

7.3 B order D eaths on the R ise ? N avigating R isk through T echnologies of C ontrol

By Aphrodite Papachristodoulou (University of Galway)

Introduction On 14 June 2023, the second deadliest shipwreck on record in the Mediterranean Sea since 2015 occurred in the open waters of Greece, near the tourist island of Pylos. Approximately 750 individuals were traveling on the boat of whom 104 survived the wreck, 78 were recorded dead and the remaining, approximately 600, missing and presumed dead. As unpalatable as this may seem, this is a case where migrants called for help, several actors witnessed and came in close proximity with the boat in distress and yet all the parties involved chose to remain inactive. Since this boat sinking, the death toll has not stopped; rather, it has steadily increased. The calls for accountability and an end to the practice of abandonment at sea, which undermines well-established obligations of international law are countless. Relatedly, the risk of death associated with migration by sea is especially high due to drowning, malnourishment, suffocation, dehydration, starvation, unsanitary conditions and violence. 876 Hence, the thousands of lives that perish each year in the Mediterranean region have become a humanitarian concern that is growing in scale and demanding significant attention. Under the international law of the sea framework, the principle of saving lives of those in distress at sea becomes of critical importance for safeguarding the right to life under international human rights law, as both share the same purpose: the protection of human life. Apart from being a long-standing and fundamental tradition of seafaring, this humanitarian norm is also incorporated as a legal duty of the search and rescue (SAR) system under international law. 877 In the last decades the attention of saving lives at sea and preventing deaths that occur once people embark on perilous sea journeys has diverted towards the protection of borders. 878 Accordingly, the European Union (EU) and its Member States have drawn migration control policies, 879 concluded bilateral cooperation agreements with third countries, 880 and fortified external borders, 876 Ghráinne M, ‘Left to Die at Sea: State Responsibility for the May 2015 Thai, Indonesian and Malaysian Pushback Operations’ (2017) 10 Irish Yearbook of International Law , p. 7. 877 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (adopted 10 December 1982, entered into force 16 November 1994) 1833 UNTS 397 (UNCLOS), Art. 98. 878 Spijkerboer T, ‘Moving Migrants, States, and Rights: Human Rights and Border Deaths’ (2013) 7(2) Law and Ethics of Human Rights 213, p. 213. 879 E.g., Council of the European Union, Council Decision (CFSP) 2013/233/ of 22 May 2013 on the European Union Integrated Border Management Assistance Mission in Libya (EUBAM Libya) [2013] OJ L138/15. 880 E.g., ‘Memorandum of understanding on cooperation in the fields of development, the fight against illegal immigration, human trafficking and fuel smuggling and on reinforcing the security of borders between the State of Libya and the Italian Republic’ ( EU Migration Law Blog , 2017) ; Council of the European Union, Council Decision (CFSP) 2020/472 of 31 March 2020 on a European Union

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