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

traffic across the EU borders’ and ultimately to block migrants’ passage. 890 In particular, one of the aims of EUROSUR is to ‘contribute to ensuring the protection and saving the lives of migrants’. 891 Despite a significant decline in the number of migrant crossings since 2016, attributed to the EU’s emphasis on securitization, a disconcerting trend has resulted. This decrease has been accompanied by a notable increase in the mortality rates in the Mediterranean, as will be demonstrated below. 892 This has to be attributed, at least in part, to the failure of the EU policy and operational strategies aimed at countering the flow of migrants reaching European shores. Ergo , whilst EUROSUR could have been utilised to save migrants in distress, in practice, it primarily presents a tool to the EU to fight ‘illegal immigration’, adding to the proactive element of risk management. Notwithstanding where knowledge of a maritime distress situation is afforded to States through, for example, surveillance technologies producing thermal images indicating an emergency situation, this will suffice to trigger the international law of the sea obligation to render assistance without delay to those in danger of being lost at sea. 893 In recent years, a significant deployment of aerial assets in maritime surveillance operations have come to play a key role in strengthening the EU’s Mediterranean borders. This can be observed, for instance, through bilateral cooperation agreements between countries (e.g., Italy-Libya Memorandum of Understanding) 894 and joint naval operations usually conducted by Frontex. As an illustration, some of the operations in place in the Mediterranean Sea region include Frontex’s Operation Themis, which has as its primary mandate border control and surveillance in the Central Mediterranean, Frontex’s Operation Indalo in the Western Mediterranean, and Frontex’s Joint Operation Poseidon in the Eastern Mediterranean. Moreover, Frontex has also extended its border enforcement practices to spaceborne satellites for monitoring migration flows across the Mediterranean, and in particular, has cooperated with the EU’s Earth Observation Programme Copernicus, which provides satellite-based data, with the aim of enhancing the EU’s external borders. 895 Against this backdrop, technologies play an instrumental role in border management as they afford State authorities significant power to remotely control the passage and entry of irregular migrants. 896 Consequently, the spread of remote control signifies how 890 Regulation (EU) 1052/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 October 2013 establishing the European Border Surveillance System (EUROSUR) L 295/11, 6 November 2013. 891 Art. 1 of the EUROSUR. 892 See for example UNHCR, ‘UNHCR data visualisation on Mediterranean crossings charts rising death toll and tragedy at sea’ (2022) . 893 Art. 98 of UNCLOS. 894 See ‘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’ (2017) . 895 Lutterbeck D, ‘Airpower and Migration Control’ (2023) 28(5) Geopolitics 2016, p. 2022. 896 On exclusion see, D Bigo’s ‘banopticon’ apparatus, for instance, Bigo D, ‘Detention of Foreigners, States of Exception, and the Social Practices of Control of the Banopticon’ in Rajaram and Grundy-Warr (eds), Borderscapes Hidden Geographies and Politics at Territory’s Edge (1st edn, Univ of Minnesota Press, 2007), p. 23; Tomsky T, ‘Citizens of Nowhere: Cosmopolitanisation and Cultures of Securitisation in Dionne Brand’s Inventory’ (2019) 40(5) Journal of Intercultural Studies 564, p. 564.

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