Jean-Pierre Cassarino (ed.), Unbalanced Reciprocities: Cooperation on Readmission in the Euro-Mediterranean Area. Washington: Middle East Institute, 2010

8/8/2019 Jean-Pierre Cassarino (ed.), Unbalanced Reciprocities: Cooperation on Readmission in the Euro-Mediterranean Area.…

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Unbalanced Reciprocities:

Cooperation on Readmission in theEuro-Mediterranean Area

Edited by Jean-Pierre Cassarino

Middle East Institute

Special Edition Vw



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Contents

INRODUCION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENS ii

ABBREVIAIONS iii

CHAPER 1Dealing With Unbalanced Reciprocities:Cooperation on Readmission and Implications,Jean-Pierre Cassarino 1

CHAPER 2Readmission in the Relations between Italy and North Arican Mediterranean Countries,Paolo Cuttitta 30

CHAPER 3Relations Among Unequals? Readmission betweenItaly and Libya,Emanuela Paoletti 54

CHAPER 4Italy And Its Libyan Cooperation Program:Pioneer o the European Union’s Reugee Policy?Silja Klepp 77

NOES ON CONRIBUORS 94

unbALAncED rEcIprocITIES: rEADMISSIon AgrEEMEnTS



MIDDLE EAST InSTITuTE SpEcIAL EDITIon vIEwpoInTS M i

INRODUCION

Readmission Agreements are a mechanism or countering illegal

immigration. Such agreements involve reciprocal undertakings to returnillegal residents (or irregular migrants) to their country o origin or transit.Tis special edition o MEI Vw brings together extensive researchon agreements between European and North Arican states. Te ollowingchapters explore what can be argued as the unbalanced costs and benets orall parties. While the ormat o this collection is dierent rom past editionso MEI Vw and the essays explore the subject matter in greater depth,Ub R nonetheless builds on the three recently published volumes on Migration and the Arab World. And it represents MEI’scontinuing commitment to bring resh issues and voices to to the attentiono our readers.

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unbALAncED rEcIprocITIES: rEADMISSIon AgrEEMEnTS M ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENS

Parts o this volume originally stem rom a workshop that took place in

the ramework o the 9th Mediterranean Research Meeting in Montecatinierme (Italy) organized by the Robert Schuman Center or Advanced Studies(RSCAS) at the European University Institute (EUI). Our rst debt is to theauthors who participated in this event and who then accepted to revise theirdras to contribute to this volume.

Special thanks go to Tomas Gammelto-Hansen, Matthew Gibney, EttoreGreco, Antonella Guarneri, Lourdes Hernandez Martin, George Joé,Christina Oelgemoller, Marion Panizzon, Delphine Perrin, Nathalie occi,Anna riandayllidou and Fulvio Vassallo Paleologo who provided valuableeedback and suggestions on some sections o this volume.

Tis project would not have been possible without the instrumental supporto John Calabrese and his team at the Middle East Institute (Washington,DC) who shepherded the overall publication process.



MIDDLE EAST InSTITuTE SpEcIAL EDITIon vIEwpoInTS M iii

ABBREVIAIONS

AMU Arab Maghreb Union

EC European Commission

ENI Ente Nazionale IdrocarburiEP European Parliament

EU European Union

Frontex European Agency or the Management o OperationalCooperation at the External Borders o the Member States

o the European

HRW Human Rights Watch

IOM International Organization or Migration

MNC Multinational Corporation

NAMC North Arican Mediterranean Country

NGO Non-governmental Organization

NOC National Oil Corporation

ODA Ocial Development Assistance

RCP Regional Consultative Process

UN United Nations

UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner or Reugees



C 1

Dealing with Unbalanced Reciprocities:

Cooperation on Readmission and Implications

Jean-Pierre Cassarino

O ver the last 15 years or so, policy-makers and government representativeshave repeatedly reerred to readmission in ocial discourses and statements.

Readmission is the process through which individuals who are not allowedto stay on the territory o a country (e.g., unauthorized migrants, rejectedasylum-seekers or stateless persons) are expelled or removed, whether in acoercive manner or not.

Just like deportation, readmission is a orm o expulsion i we assume that“the word ‘expulsion’ is commonly used to describe that exercise o statepower which secures the removal, either ‘voluntarily,’ under threat o orcibleremoval, or orcibly, o an alien rom the territory o a State.”1 Readmission

has become part and parcel o the immigration control systems consolidatedby countries o origin, transit, and destination. echnically, readmission asan administrative procedure requires cooperation at the bilateral level withthe country to which the readmitted or removed persons are to be relocated.Readmission permeates both domestic and oreign aairs. Practically, it isaimed at the swi removal o aliens who are viewed as being unauthorized.

Te practice o readmission, viewed as a orm o expulsion, did not start

een years ago. Readmission is, in its various orms, perhaps as old as theexercise, whether so or violent, o state sovereignty and interventionismdesigned to regulate the entry and exit o aliens. In the early 20th century,the principle o readmission, based on the obligation to take back one’s ownnationals who are ound in unlawul conditions, was expressed in variousbilateral agreements in Western Europe, even i, as Kay Hailbronner hasstressed, “representatives o some states voiced reservations about an absolute

1. Guy Goodwin-Gill, I Lw M P bw S(Oxord: Clarendon, 1978), p. 201, cited in W. Walters, “Deportation, Expulsion, and the In-ternational Police o Aliens,” Cz S, Vol. 6, No. 3 (2002), pp. 265-292. See alsoGuy Goodwin-Gill and Jane McAdam, T R I Lw, Tird Edition (Ox-ord: Oxord University Press, 2007).



MIDDLE EAST InSTITuTE SpEcIAL EDITIon vIEwpoInTS M 2

duty to reaccept [their nationals].”2

Additionally, Aristide Zolberg shows that, as early as the 19 th century, in theUnited States, “deportation did not constitute a punishment but was merely an administrative device or returning unwelcome and undesirable aliens to

their own countries.”3 Tis assumption holds true when it comes to explainingreadmission as a orm o police control exerted by national law-enorcementagencies or administrations to categorize aliens and citizens alike.

However, in today’s international relations, cooperation on readmissioninvolves more than an “absolute duty” or a “mere administrative device.”

When dealing with readmission we have to take into consideration the actthat state-to-state cooperation is based on asymmetric costs and benets, or

it involves two contracting parties (i.e., the country o destination and thecountry o origin or transit) that do not necessarily share the same interestsin pursuing cooperation. Nor do they ace the same domestic, regional, andinternational implications.

Despite their being ramed in a reciprocal context, readmission agreements,or treaties, contain mutual obligations that cannot apply equally to bothcontracting parties owing to the asymmetrical impact o the eectiveimplementation o the agreements, and to the dierent structural

institutional and legal capacity o both contracting parties or dealing withthe removal o unauthorized aliens, whether these are identied as nationalso the contracting parties or as third-country nationals transiting throughthe territory o a contracting party. Tese are the main reasons or which Ihave argued that readmission agreements are characterized by unbalancedreciprocities.4

Admittedly, international relations abound with agreements based onasymmetric costs and benets.5 However, what makes cooperation on

readmission quite extraordinary lies in the act that, despite the aorementioned

2. Kay Hailbronner,R A Ob S Pb I Lw R Ow F N, Zeitschri ür ausländisches öent-liches Recht und Völkerrecht, No. 57 (1997), http://www.hjil.de/57_1997/57_1997_1_a_1_50.pd.

3. Aristide Zolberg, A N b D: I P F A(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006), pp. 225-226.

4. Jean-Pierre Cassarino, “Inormalising Readmission Agreements in the EU Neighbour-hood,” T I S, Vol. 42, No. 2 (2007), p. 182.5. Charles Lipson, “Why are Some International Agreements Inormal?” I O

z, Vol. 45, No. 4 (1991), pp. 495-538; Robert. O. Keohane, “Reciprocity in Interna-tional Relations,” I Oz, Vol. 40, No. 1 (1986), pp. 1-27.



unbALAncED rEcIprocITIES: rEADMISSIon AgrEEMEnTSM 3

unbalanced reciprocities, the number o bilateral agreements linked toreadmission has skyrocketed since the early 1990s. Tis sharp increase isalso surprising when considering that readmission agreements only acilitatecooperation at the bilateral level. In other words, they are not a

when addressing readmission or removal.Tis paradox deserves urther attention, or it raises our questions regarding1) the actors shaping the cooperation on readmission, 2) the patterns o cooperation sustaining states’ , 3) the eectiveness and utility o the cooperation on readmission, and 4) its impact on the conditions o readmitted aliens. Te contributions contained in this volume address thesequestions, with specic reerence to the Euro-Mediterranean context.

E FACES OF COOPERAION ON READMISSION

States dier markedly in terms o cooperation on readmission,6 probably owing to the types o ows aecting their respective national territory. Atthe same time, however, the ways in which states codiy their interactionover time play a crucial role in shaping their patterns o cooperation onreadmission.

Tis assumption implies that state-to-state interaction, in its broadest sense,impacts on the nature o cooperative patterns and on states’ responsivenessto uncertainties. Sometimes, they may reciprocally commit themselvesto cooperating on readmission by concluding an agreement because bothcontracting parties view the ormalization as being valuable to each other’sinterests, beyond the resilient unbalanced reciprocities that characterizethe cooperation. Other times, however, they may decide to readjust theircooperation in order to “reduce the chance that either state will want to incur

the costs o reneging or be orced to endure an unsatisactory division o

6. Readers will certainly note that the word “return” is not used in this volume as a syno-nym or readmission or removal, or it is viewed as being not only semantically misleadingbut also analytically biased. Te use o “readmission” and “removal” is deliberate; it reectsthe need or a critical approach to the current so-called “return policies” adopted by mostEU Member States. Tese policies are primarily aimed at securing the eective departure o

unauthorized aliens. In other words, they do not view return as a stage in the migration cy-cle. Nor do they consider reintegration. Although these policies are euphemistically named“return policies,” they prioritize the removal o aliens out o the territory o destinationcountries, with or without explicit coercion, to another country which is not necessarily aliens’ country o origin.




gains or long periods.”7 Circumstances and uncertainties alike change overtime, making exible arrangements preerable over rigid ones.

In previous works,8 I have explained that simply making an inventory o the standard readmission agreements concluded at the bilateral level in the

Euro-Mediterranean area would not suce to illustrate the prolieration o cooperative patterns on readmission, or these have become highly diversiedas a result o various concomitant actors. I elaborate on this in the nextsections.

E SANDARD APPROAC

Standard readmission agreements have been subject to various studies,above all by scholars in migration and asylum law9 who, or example,stressed the reciprocal obligations contained in a readmission agreement aswell as the procedures that need to be respected to identiy undocumentedpersons (unauthorized migrants, rejected asylum seekers, stateless persons,unaccompanied minors) to subsequently remove them out o the territory o

7. Barbara Koremenos, “Contracting around International Uncertainty,” A P S Rw, Vol. 99, No. 4 (2005), p. 551.

8. Cassarino, “Inormalising Readmission Agreements in the EU Neighbourhood,” pp.179-196. See also Jean-Pierre Cassarino, “Te Co-operation on Readmission and EnorcedReturn in the Arican-European Context,” in Marie rémolières, ed., R C W A M: A E (Paris: OECD, 2009), pp. 49-72.

9. Jean-Marie Henckaerts, M E M I Lw P, ( TeHague: Martinus Nijho, 1995); Kay Hailbronner, R A Ob S Pb I Lw R Ow F N;Bruno Nascimbene, “Relazioni esterne e accordi di riammissione” in Luigi Daniele, ed., Lz ’U E (Milan: Giurè editore, 2001), pp.291-310; Martin Schieer, “Community Readmission Agreements with Tird Countries —Objectives, Substance and Current State o Negotiations,” E J M Lw Vol. 5 (2003), pp. 343-357; Gregor Noll, “Readmission Agreements” in MatthewJ. Gibney and Randall Hansen, eds., I A: F 1900 , Vol. 2(Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2005), pp. 495-497; Annabelle Roig and Tomas Huddleston,“EC Readmission Agreements: A Re-evaluation o the Political Impasse,” E J M Lw Vol. 9 (2007), pp. 363-387; Florian rauner and Imke Kruse, ECV F R A: I Nw EU S A

Nb , CEPS Working Document No. 290 (Brussels: Center or EuropeanPolicy Studies, 2008); Nils Coleman, E R P: T C I R R (Leiden: Martinus Nijho Publishers, 2009); Bjartmar Freyr Arnarsson,R A: E , Master Tesis in International Law(Lund: University o Lund, Faculty o Law, 2007).




a destination country.10 Given the existence o a huge literature in migrationlaw, the point here is not to elaborate on a legal approach to readmissionagreements. Nevertheless, it is important to recall some essential legal aspectslinked with states’ accountability in the eld o readmission.

When concluding a standard readmission agreement, the contracting partiesagree to carry out removal procedures without unnecessary ormalities andwithin reasonable time limits, with due respect o their duties under theirnational legislation and the international agreements on human rights andthe protection o the status o reugees, in accordance with the 1951 GenevaConvention Relating to the Status o Reugees and its 1967 protocol, the1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the 1984 UNConvention against torture, and more recently the 2000 European Charter

on Fundamental Rights. All o these internationally recognized instrumentsoblige states not to expel persons (whether migrants or not) to countries andterritories where their lie or reedom would be threatened in any mannerwhatsoever.

Despite the letter o these agreements, various human rights organizationsand associations in Europe and abroad have repeatedly denounced the lack o transparency that surrounds the implementation o readmission agreementsand removal operations. Such public denunciations have not only questioned

the compliance with the obligations and principles contained in bilateralreadmission agreements, but also have led to growing public concernsregarding respect or the rights and saety o the expelled persons.

In act, the willingness o a country o origin to conclude a readmissionagreement does not mean that it has the legal institutional and structuralcapacity to deal with the removal o its nationals, let alone the removal o oreign nationals and the protection o their rights. Nor does it mean thatthe agreement will be eectively or ully implemented in the long run, orit involves two contracting parties that do not necessarily share the sameinterest in the bilateral cooperation on readmission. Nor do they ace thesame implications, as previously stated. Tese considerations are importantto show that the conclusion o a readmission agreement is motivated by expected benets which are unequally perceived by the contracting parties,on the one hand, and that the agreement’s implementation is based on aragile balance between the concrete benets and costs attached to it, on theother.

10. Arnarsson, R A: E P C.




E FRAGILE BALANCE BEWEEN COSS AND BENEFIS

Whereas a destination country has a vested interest in concluding readmissionagreements to acilitate the removal o unauthorized migrants, the interest

o a country o origin may be less evident, above all i its economy remainsdependent on the revenues o its (legal and unauthorized) expatriatesliving abroad, or when migration continues to be viewed as a saety valve torelieve pressure on domestic unemployment. Tis statement is particularly true regarding the bilateral negotiations on readmission between some EUMember States and countries in the South Mediterranean and Arica whereeconomic and political dierentials are signicant. Special trade concessions,preerential entry quotas or economic migrants, technical cooperation

and assistance, increased development aid, and entry visa acilitations havebeen the most common incentives used by the EU-27 Member States toinduce countries in the South Mediterranean and Arica to cooperate onreadmission.

However, experience has shown on various occasions that compensatory measures — which constitute a orm o incentive — may not always inducea third country to conclude a standard readmission agreement. Moreover,even when a standard agreement is concluded, the high costs stemming

rom the implementation o the agreement make the extent o the actualcooperation highly uncertain. For a country o origin, such costs are not just nancial. Nor do the costs stem only rom the structural institutionaland legal reorms needed to implement the cooperation. Tey also lie in theunpopularity o the standard readmission agreement and in the act thatits ull implementation might have a negative impact on the relationshipbetween the state and society in a country o origin.

GRAFING READMISSION ON O OER POLIC AREAS

I we ollow the conventional wisdom, we may believe that states negotiateand conclude readmission agreements as an end in itsel. However, as thecontributions in this volume show, readmission agreements are rarely an endin itsel but rather one o the many ways to consolidate a broader bilateralcooperative ramework, including other strategic (and perhaps more crucial)policy areas such as security, energy, development aid, and police coopera-tion. Oen, the decision to cooperate on readmission results rom a orm o rapprochement that shapes the intensity o the .

Tere are various examples which support this argument. In February




1992, Morocco and Spain signed a readmission agreement in the wake o areconciliation process which materialized ollowing the signing o the reaty o Good-neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation on July 4, 1991. Morocco’sacceptance to conclude this agreement was motivated by its ambition to

acquire a special status in its political and economic relationships with theEuropean Union.11 Likewise, in January 2007 Italy and Egypt concluded areadmission agreement as a result o reinorced bilateral exchanges betweenthe two countries. Such reinorced exchanges have allowed Egypt to benetrom a bilateral debt swap agreement, as well as rom trade concessionsor its agricultural produce and, additionally, temporary entry quotas orEgyptian nationals in Italy. Importantly, the rapprochement between Italy and Egypt was key to integrating the latter into the G1412 while acquiringenhanced regime legitimacy at the international level. Similarly, the bilateralagreement on the circulation o persons and readmission concluded in July 2006 between the United Kingdom and Algeria, while still not in orce, isnot an exception to the rule. Tis agreement, limited to the removal o thenationals o the contracting parties, took place in the context o a wholeround o negotiations, including such strategic issues as energy security, theght against terrorism, and police cooperation. Tese strategic issues havebecome top priorities in the bilateral relations between the United Kingdomand Algeria, particularly ollowing the July 2005 London bombings and theensuing G8 meeting in Gleneagles that Algeria also attended.13

Tese ew examples are important to show that the issue o readmissionweaves its way through various policy areas. It has been, as it were, graed on toother issues o “high politics,” such as the ght against international terrorism,energy security, reconciliation process, reinorced border controls, specialtrade concessions, and, last but not least, the search or regime legitimacy and strategic alliances. It is this whole bilateral cooperative ramework which

secures a minimum operability in the cooperation on readmission more thanthe “reciprocal” and binding obligations contained in a standard readmissionagreement. Policy-makers know that the reciprocal obligations contained in astandard readmission agreement are too asymmetrical to secure its concreteimplementation in the long run. Tey also know that graing the cooperation

11. El Arbi Mrabet, “Readmission agreements: Te Case o Morocco,” E J

M Lw, Vol. 5 (2003), pp. 379-385.12. Te rst G14 meeting took place in L’Aquila (Italy) in July 2009. Te G14 comprisesthe world’s most wealthy and industrialized countries (G8) plus the G5, i.e., the group o emerging economies (Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and South Arica), and Egypt.

13. Cassarino, “Inormalising Readmission Agreements in the EU Neighbourhood.”




on readmission onto other policy areas may compensate or the unbalancedreciprocities characterizing the cooperation on readmission or removal. It isbecause o this awareness, which arguably resulted rom a learning process,that the web o readmission agreements has acquired ormidable dimensions

over the last een years or so. However, this tells us just a part o the story.

E DRIVE FOR FLExIBILI

We have seen that cooperative mechanisms may be ormalized, as is oenthe case, through the conclusion o standard readmission agreements i both contracting parties view this as being valuable to each other’s interests.

However, as mentioned beore, we need to look beyond standard readmissionagreements to provide a more complete picture o the various mechanismsand cooperative instruments that have emerged recently.

Under some circumstances, both contracting parties may agree to cooperateon readmission without necessarily ormalizing their cooperation witha standard agreement. Tey may opt or dierent ways o dealing withreadmission through exchanges o letters and memoranda o understandingor by choosing to rame their cooperation via other types o deals (e.g., police

cooperation agreements, arrangements, and pacts).

Te main rationale or the adoption o non-standard agreements is to securebilateral cooperation on migration management, including readmission, andto respond exibly to new situations raught with uncertainties. Because o the uncertainty surrounding the concrete implementation o the cooperativeagreement over time, states may want to secure their credibility throughagreements “that include the proper amount o exibility and thereby createor themselves a kind o international insurance.”14 With reerence to the

cooperation on readmission, this argument does not imply that states do notmake any credible commitments when signing agreements. o the contrary, itis because o their search or credibility that they may opt or exible patternso cooperation when it comes to dealing with highly sensitive matters suchas readmission or removal.

Credibility is a core issue in the cooperation on readmission, or it symbolically buttresses the centrality o the state and its law enorcement agencies in the

management o international migration. Te cooperation on readmissionhas oen been presented by European leaders to their constituencies and

14. Koremenos, “Contracting around International Uncertainty,” p. 562.




the international community as an integral part o the ght against illegalmigration and as instruments protecting their immigration and asylumsystems.

Tis cause-and-eect relationship, predicated by political leaders, shows

to constituencies that governments have the b b to respond toand even anticipate shocks (e.g., mass arrivals o unauthorized migrants),because o the existence o specic mechanisms. However, shocks generateuncertainty which might, in turn, jeopardize the eective cooperation onreadmission, particularly when it comes to addressing the pressing problemo re-documentation, that is, the delivery o travel documents or z

by the consular authorities o the third country needed to removeundocumented migrants. It is a well-known act that the above-mentioned

readmission agreement concluded in 1992 between Spain and Morocco hasnever been ully implemented. Tis agreement oresees the readmission o the nationals o the contracting parties as well as the third-country nationals.Diplomatic tensions between the two countries, particularly under theJosé María Aznar government (1996−2004), have hampered the bilateralcooperation on readmission. Tus ar, Morocco’s cooperation on the delivery o travel documents at the request o the Spanish authorities has been highly erratic.15

Changing circumstances may upset the balance o perceived costs and benetsand be conducive to deection. Because o the uncertainties surrounding theconcrete implementation o a readmission agreement, various EU MemberStates have been prone to show some exibility in readjusting their patterns o cooperation with some third countries in order to address the aorementionedproblem o re-documentation and the swi delivery o travel documents orz. Te aster the delivery o travel documents, the shorter theduration o detention, and the cheaper its costs.

E NON-SANDARD APPROAC

Over the last decades, France, Greece, Italy, and Spain have been at theoreront o a new wave o agreements linked to readmission. Tey are k toreadmission in that they cannot be properly dubbed readmission agreements,in the technical sense. Tese agreements (e.g., memoranda o understanding,

arrangements, pacts, and police cooperation agreements including a clauseon readmission) are oen based on a three-pronged approach covering 1)

15. Cassarino, “Inormalising Readmission Agreements in the EU Neighbourhood.”




the ght against unauthorized migration, including the issue o readmission,2) the reinorced control o borders, including technical assistance,and 3) the joint management o labor migration with third countries o origin, including enhanced development aid. For example, this approach is

enshrined in Spain’s Arica Plan as well as in France’s pacts on the concertedmanagement o international migration and co-development.

As mentioned earlier, circumstances change over time, and uncertainty might severely upset the ragile balance o costs and benets linked to thebilateral cooperation on readmission. Tese non-standard agreementshave been responsive to various actors. First, they tend to lower the costo deection or reneging on the agreement, or they can be renegotiatedeasily in order to respond to new contingencies. In contrast with standard

readmission agreements, they do not require a lengthy ratication processwhen renegotiation takes place. Second, they lower the public visibility o the cooperation on readmission by placing it in a broader ramework o interaction. Tis element is particularly relevant or emigration countrieslocated in the South Mediterranean and in Arica, where the cooperation onreadmission is politically unpopular and where governments are reluctantto publicize it. Under these circumstances, governments in emigrationcountries would become more acquiescent in cooperating in the ramework

o agreements k to readmission while being, at the same time, in aposition to publicly abhor the use o standard readmission agreements.Tird, they allow or exible and operable solutions aimed at addressing theneed or cooperation on readmission. Te agenda remains unchanged, butthe operability o the cooperation on readmission has been prioritized overits ormalization. Fourth, non-standard agreements linked to readmissionare by their nature dicult to detect and monitor, or they are not necessarily published in ocial bulletins. Nor are they always recorded in ocial

documents or correspondence.Tere is no question that exibility has acquired mounting importance inthe practice o readmission over the last decade. Indeed, the graph belowshows that the number o non-standard agreements linked to readmissionconcluded between the EU Member States and third countries has risenover the last decade, together with the increase in standard readmissionagreements.

Te reported growth in standard readmission agreements stems rom the



unbALAncED rEcIprocITIES: rEADMISSIon AgrEEMEnTS M 11

gradual enlargement o the European Union and rom the act that somethird countries regarded the conclusion o such readmission agreementsas a way o consolidating their relations with the European bloc. Tirdcountries in Eastern Europe and the Western Balkans have had a concreteincentive to cooperate on readmission. Teir option to cooperate could alsobe justied to their constituencies while reerring to the expected, thoughunclear prospect o accession into the EU (e.g., Croatia, Ukraine, Moldova,Georgia, Serbia, Bosnia Herzegovina, and, more recently, Kosovo). Moreover,additional incentives included the possibility to benet rom preerential visaacilitation agreements.16

In contrast with countries located in Eastern Europe and the Western Balkans,

third countries in the Mediterranean and in Arica have, rom a general pointo view, been involved in exible arrangements aimed at cooperating onreadmission (see Paolo Cuttitta’s chapter). As previously mentioned, incentivesto conclude (visible and unpopular) standard readmission agreementsdo not ully explain the prolieration o cooperative agreements linked toreadmission, or they may not always oset the unbalanced reciprocities thatcharacterize the cooperation on readmission.

Te growing number o non-standard agreements has had a certain bearing

16. rauner and Kruse, EC V F R A: I Nw EU S A Nb .

Graph 1: Known number o agreements linked to the readmission o third-country nationals concluded between the EU Member States and

third countries (rom the EU-12 to the EU-27)

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on the prolieration o agreements linked to readmission. oday, the webo bilateral agreements linked to readmission has grown considerably,involving more than one hundred countries throughout the world. Graph2 schematically illustrates the bilateral agreements linked to readmission

concluded between the 27 EU Member States plus Iceland, Norway, andSwitzerland (depicted in blue), on the one hand, and third countries (in lightgreen), on the other.17

Te size o each circle (or node) has been weighted with regard to the totalnumber o bilateral agreements linked to readmission (whether standard ornot) concluded between the two groups o countries. In other words, thebigger the circle, the denser the web o agreements linked to readmissionin which each country is involved. Among the blue-colored 27 EU Member

States (plus Iceland, Norway and Switzerland), Denmark, France, Germany,Greece, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland have been the most involved in bilateralcooperation on readmission. Clearly, their respective patterns o cooperation vary with the type o ows aecting their national territories, geographicalproximity, the nature and intensity o their interaction (in terms o powerrelations) and, nally, with the third country’s responsiveness to the need orenhanced cooperation on readmission.

Incidentally, Denmark and Germany — like Switzerland — tend to cooperateon readmission through the conclusion o standard agreements. Tisinclination may stem rom the act that their negotiations have been mainly concluded with third countries in Eastern Europe and the Western Balkans(mainly Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Macedonia, Albania, Moldova,Ukraine, and Kosovo) which, as explained earlier, have had a concreteincentive to cooperate on readmission and to ormalize their cooperationwhile graing it onto other strategic policy areas.

Conversely, Italy, Greece, France, and Spain have been conronted with theneed to adapt their respective cooperative patterns, above all when it comesto interacting on the issue o readmission with some Mediterranean andArican countries. Past experience has already shown that Mediterraneanthird countries have been less inclined to conclude standard readmission

17. For the sake o clarity, Graph 2 does not plot the numerous readmission agreements

that have been concluded over the last decades, at a bilateral level, between the 27 EU Mem-ber States, Switzerland, Iceland, and Norway. Nor does it plot the growing number o agree-ments linked to readmission that third countries have concluded among themselves. Finally,Finland is not reported on Graph 2, or it has no known agreement linked to readmissionwith any third country, although Finland does practice readmission.




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agreements, or even to ully implement them when such agreements wereconcluded, owing to the potentially disruptive impact o their (visible)commitments on the domestic economy and social stability, and on theirexternal relations with their Arican neighbors. At the same time, however,

other actors have justied such readjustments.

ExPLAINING PAERNS OF COOPERAION ON READMISSION

Te practice o readmission is, as it were, yoked to complex contingencies. By practice, I mean that two states may decide to implement readmission withoutnecessarily tying their hands with an agreement, whether standard or not.

Under these circumstances, the practice may be viewed as being sporadic.What really matters is the assurance that the requested state (i.e., a country o transit or o origin) will be responsive to the expectations o the requestingstate (i.e., a destination country). For example, a country o origin may agreeto issue travel documents, at the request o a destination country, that areneeded to expel or readmit undocumented migrants without necessarily having an agreement. Te issuance o travel documents will be based on aorm o tacit assurance that the requested country will be responsive.

Te transition rom to on readmission occurs, however,when the responsiveness to perceived exigencies has to be ensured on a moreregular basis, not sporadically. A country o destination may seek to securethe regular responsiveness o its counterpart by concluding a treaty or astandard agreement based on reciprocal commitments and obligations tocooperate on readmission. At the outset, three interrelated actors may leadto the conclusion o readmission agreements at the request o a destination

country.

Te rst actor pertains to . Countries sharing acommon land or maritime border may have a higher propensity to cooperateon readmission. Tis assumption holds true in the case o Spain and Moroccowhich concluded a standard readmission agreement in 1992. Conversely,it is not explanatory in the case o neighboring Portugal and Moroccowhich, despite their common maritime border, have no bilateral standardreadmission agreement. o account or this contrast we need to combinegeographical proximity with other actors.

Te second actor reers to . Tis reects the extent to




which migration and mobility have become a salient component o thedevelopment o the bilateral relations between two countries. Migration,or the movement o people, has become over time a key eature o theirhistorical relations. Migration salience may be observed in post-colonial

regimes, where the mobility o people is part and parcel o the interactionbetween ormer colonial powers and their ormer colonies. It may alsoapply to two countries characterized by repeated exchanges o people andthe presence o large émigré communities. I viewed as being signicant inthe negotiation process, migration salience might hinder the conclusion o a standard readmission agreement, or the unpopular conclusion o suchan agreement would jeopardize the diplomatic relations between the twocountries. In other words, migration salience may turn out to be detrimentalto the conclusion o standard readmission agreements, let alone their concreteimplementation.

Te third actor pertains to . Expected absolute and relativegains allow the unbalanced reciprocities characterizing the cooperationon readmission to be overcome. Tis has oen explained the reasons orwhich various countries o origin and o transit in the Western Balkansand in Eastern Europe have had a vested interest to conclude readmissionagreements at the request o EU Member States. Teir responsiveness was

conditionally linked with an array o incentives including, among others, visaacilitation agreements, trade concessions, preerential entry quotas or givencommodities, technical assistance, and increased development aid. However,incentives do not always explain or secure cooperation on readmission in thelong term. Under some circumstances, expected benets might not alwaysoset the costs o the cooperation on readmission. Costs are not only linkedwith the concrete implementation o the agreement and its consequences, butalso with its unpopularity at the social level. Moreover, even when incentives

were viewed, at a certain point in time, as being signicant enough tocooperate on readmission, the (unintended) costs o the cooperation incurredby a country o origin or transit might eventually jeopardize the cooperativerelationship and be conducive to reneging. Incentives do not always osetthe ragile balance o costs and benets; above all, when migration saliencemight hinder the cooperation on readmission.

Arguably, none o the three actors described above could

account or states’ intervention in the eld o readmission. Cooperation onreadmission lies at the intersection o these three actors. Combined together,these actors delimit the boundaries o a where thecooperation, based on a standard readmission agreement, is practicable and




where the signicance o each o the three actors will be weighted against

each other, over time and in an manner.

However, this triangular domain provides an incomplete explanation whenit comes to analyzing the emergence o non-standard agreements linked

to readmission (e.g., memoranda o understanding, pacts, exchanges o letters, police cooperation agreement including a clause on readmission).Te gradual importance that such agreements are acquiring at the bilaterallevel results rom the consideration o a ourth actor that has emerged overthe last ew years prompting some EU Member States to adjust or evenreadjust their cooperative ramework with some non-EU source countries.Tis readjustment was not only motivated by the need or exibility with a view to securing the operability o the cooperation on readmission. It also

stemmed rom the perceptible empowerment o some source countries as aresult o their proactive involvement in the reinorced police control o theEU external borders. Actually, with reerence to the South Mediterranean,countries like Morocco, Algeria, Libya, unisia, urkey, and Egypt havebecome gradually aware o their empowerment. Teir cooperation onborder controls has not only allowed these Mediterranean countries to play the eciency card in the eld o migration and border management, whilegaining urther international credibility and regime legitimacy; but it has

also allowed them to acquire a strategic position in migration and bordermanagement talks on which they tend to capitalize. Tere can be no questionthat this perceptible empowerment has had serious implications on the waysin which the cooperation on readmission has been adaptively addressed,




recongured and codied, leading to the conclusion o (exible and less visible) patterns o cooperation on readmission.

Te combination o the our actors shown on the graph below allows theconclusion o agreements linked to readmission (whether standard or not)to be better explained.

Various case studies support the analytical relevance o the above diagram.o give just a ew examples, France had to adjust its cooperative patterns onreadmission with most North and West Arican countries as a result o thiscombination: First, because the management o labor migration has beenpart and parcel o France’s diplomatic relations with these third countries.

Te (visible) negotiation o an unpopular standard readmission agreementwould have jeopardized France’s relations with these countries (i.e.,

). Second, because the aorementioned third countries have acquireda strategic position through their participation in the reinorced controlo the EU external borders and in the ght against illegal migration andinternational terrorism (i.e., w ). Bringing pressure to bear onthese neighboring (and strategic) third countries to conclude a standardreadmission agreement would have been dicult, i not counterproductive.

Conversely, France was in a position to negotiate standard readmission

agreements with numerous Latin American countries, or their visibleconclusion would not have signicantly impaired bilateral relations, andbecause migration management does not constitute, or now, an issue o high politics in the relations between these geographically remote countries




and France ( is not a signicant actor). Under thesecircumstances, France reinorced its cooperation on the exemption o short-term visas to the nationals o cooperative Latin American countries (i.e.,) by means o bilateral exchanges o letters. Conversely, Spain has

ew readmission agreements with Latin American countries, probably owingto the act that migration management constitutes an issue o high politics(i.e., ) in the history o its bilateral relations with LatinAmerican countries.

It is the combination o these our actors that seems to account or theincrease in the number o agreements linked to readmission while atthe same time explaining their diversity. However, there exist additionaldynamics sustaining the prolieration o these agreements, despite the

unbalanced reciprocities that characterize them. Other driving orces needto be considered to account or this paradox.

E DRIVING FORCES OF E COOPERAION ON READMISSION

I began by analyzing several patterns o cooperation on readmission by

highlighting the broader strategic ramework o interaction in which they are embedded and by identiying the key actors shaping at the same timetheir diversity. I also emphasized the ragile balance o costs and benetslinked with the cooperation on readmission and showed that states do notshare the same interests in the cooperative agreement. Tey may expect togain more through cooperation or to are well compared with other states.

Tere can be no question that relative-gains-seeking can help explain the

reasons or which two state actors cooperate on readmission. Such relativegains do motivate state actors to cooperate or not. However, this assumptiondoes not necessarily mean that “relative gains pervade international politicsnearly enough to make the strong realist position hold in general.”18 Tere alsoexist “particular systems,”19 shaped by belies, values, and dominant schemeso understanding that can have an impact on the conditions conducive tocooperation, as well as on states’ perceptions and change o behavior.

18. Duncan Snidal, “Relative Gains and the Pattern o International Cooperation,” A P S A, Vol. 85, No. 3 (1991), p. 703.

19. John S. Dryzek, Margaret. L. Clark, and Garry McKenzie, “Subject and System in Inter-national Interaction,” I Oz, Vol. 43, No. 3 (1989), p. 475.




Te recognition o such systems is important insoar as it lays emphasison the need to consider the existence o a causal link between belies and(perceived) interests, subjectivities, and priorities, as well as between valuesand policy agendas. Te point is not so much to analyze the costs and benets

linked with the cooperation on readmission between two state actors (seeEmanuela Paoletti’s chapter). Te main question lies in exploring the systemwhereby the cooperation on readmission has become more predictable overthe last ten years or so. Investigating such a system, or “concourse structure,”as described by John Dryzek .,20 is key to understanding the overridingdriving orces which have arguably contributed to the increase in thenumber o cooperative agreements linked to readmission, again despite theunbalanced reciprocities that characterize them.

ExPRESSIONS OF A “CONCOURSE SRUCURE”

Te international agenda or the management o migration is a orm o “concourse structure,” assuming that it “is the product o individual subjectsand, once created, provides a context or the urther development o theirsubjectivity.”21 Te reerence to the management o international migration is

today part and parcel o state ocials’ language and discourses. In a documento the International Organization or Migration (IOM), it is described asbeing based on a series o “common understandings outlining undamentalshared assumptions and principles [among state actors] underlying migrationmanagement.”22 Te agenda is also aimed at creating state-led mechanismsdesigned to “inuence migration ows.”23 However, its repeated reerenceimplies much more than the capacity to inuence migration ows.

Beyond their conicting sovereign interests, countries o origin, transit,

and destination share a common objective in the migration managementagenda: introducing regulatory mechanisms buttressing their position as

20. Dryzek, Clark, and McKenzie, “Subject and System in International Interaction.”21. Dryzek, Clark, and McKenzie, “Subject and System in International Interaction,” p.

502.22. “International Agenda or Migration Management: Common Understandings and E-

ective Practices or a Planned, Balanced, and Comprehensive Approach to the Management

o Migration” (Berne: International Organization or Migration, 2004), http://apmrn.anu.edu.au/publications/IOM%20Berne.doc.23. John Salt, w M M S (2000), p. 11; Report based on

the Proceedings o the Seminar on “Managing Migration in the Wider Europe,” Strasbourg,October 12-13, 1998 (Strasbourg: Council o Europe, 1998).




legitimate managers o the mobility o their nationals and oreigners. Tedramatic increase in the number o agreements linked to readmissioncannot be isolated rom the consolidation o this agenda, at the regional andinternational levels.

Te international agenda or the management o migration has gainedmomentum through the organization o state-led international consultationsin various regions o the world. Such regular consultations, or regionalconsultative processes (RCPs),24 were critical in opening regular channelso communication among the representatives o countries o destination,o transit, and o origin. Scholars have already analyzed the ways in whichRCPs can be reerred to as networks o socialization25 or “inormal policy networks”26 between state representatives, establishing connections and

relationships and dening roles and behaviors.At the same time, RCPs have contributed to dening common orientationsand understandings27 as to how the movement o all persons should beinuenced and controlled. Trough their repetition, they have instilledguiding principles which in turn have been erected as normative valuesshaping how international migration should best be administered, regulated,and understood.

In addition to their recurrence, such intergovernmental consultations havegradually introduced a new lexicon including such words and notions as b, b, , b, z, , , , , b,

24. “While the rst RCP was established in 1985, the majority o RCPs have emergedsince 1995, oen as a result o specic events or developments — or example, the all o the Soviet Union, sudden major inuxes o irregular migrants, and concerns over security linked to the events o 9/11” (IOM, source: http://www.iom.int/jahia/Jahia/regional-con-sultative-processes, accessed 10 December 2009). Major RCPs on migration include, amongmany others, the 2001 Berne Initiative, the 1991 Budapest Process, the 1996 Puebla Process,the 2002 5+5 dialogue on migration in the Mediterranean, the 2003 Mediterranean transitmigration dialogue, the 2000 Migration Dialogue or West Arica, and the Global Forum onMigration and Development.

25. Colleen Touez and Frédérique Channac, “Shaping International Migration Policy:Te role o regional consultative processes,” W E P, Vol. 29, No. 2 (2006), p.384.

26. Sandra Lavenex, “A Governance Perspective on the European Neighbourhood Policy:

Integration beyond conditionality?”, J E Pb P, Vol. 15, No. 6 (2008),p. 940.27. Amanda Klekowski von Koppenels, “Te Role o Regional Consultative Processes in

Managing International Migration,” IOM Migration Research Series No. 3 (Geneva: IOM,2001), p. 24.




j w, b , and . Tere is no questionthat this lexicon, endorsed and used by governmental and intergovernmentalagencies, among others, has achieved a terminological hegemony in today’social discourses and rhetoric as applied to international migration. It has

also been critical in manuacturing a top-down ramework o understandingwhile reinorcing, at the same time, the managerial centrality o the state ando its law enorcement bureaucracy.

Tis has had various implications. Perhaps the most important one lies inhaving built a hierarchy o priorities aimed at best achieving the objectivesset out in the migration management agenda. Te above lexicon was o course a prerequisite to giving sense to this hierarchy o priorities, or itsmain unction is to delineate the contours o the issues which should

be tackled rst and oremost. As Robert Cox would put it, this hierarchy o priorities has gradually mystied the accountability o states through aprocess o consensus ormation leading to the identication o top prioritiesand “perceived exigencies” while hiding others.28

Te cooperation on readmission is perhaps the most symptomatic eatureo this process o consensus ormation and “shared problem perceptions”.29 oday, it stands high in the hierarchy o priorities set by countries o destination, transit, and origin, whether they are poor or rich, large or small,

democratically organized or totalitarian.

Readmission or removal has become a mundane technique to combatunauthorized migration and to address the removal o rejected asylumseekers. It is important to stress that cooperating on readmission does notonly allow states to w they have the credible ability to prevent or respondto uncertainties, as mentioned earlier. It has also contributed, by the sametoken, to making their constituencies (more) aware o the presence o thesovereign within a specic territorial entity. In other words, keeping out theundesirables is not a question o immigration control and the security agenda. It is also an issue closely linked with the expression o state authority and sanction, or rather with states’ capacity o classiying aliens and citizensalike, as well as their rights and position in a territorialized society.30 In this

28. Robert W. Cox, “Problems o Power and Knowledge in a Changing World Order” inRichard Stubbs and Georey R.D. Underhill, eds., P E C W

O (Oxord: Oxord University Press, 2006), pp. 39-50.29. Sandra Lavenex and Nicole Wichmann, “Te External Governance o EU InternalSecurity,” J E I, Vol. 31, No. 1 (2009), p. 98.

30. Godried Engbersen, “Irregular Migration, Criminality and the State” in WillemSchinkel, ed., Gbz S: S P S S






countries o destination, transit, and origin.

Tis prioritization process has led to the exible reinterpretation, i notserious breach, o internationally recognized standards and norms. Te mostemblematic case is perhaps the way in which the Italian-Libyan cooperation

on readmission has developed over the last ve years (see Silja Klepp’schapter). In April 2005, the European Parliament (EP) voted on a resolutionstating that the “Italian authorities have ailed to meet their internationalobligations by not ensuring that the lives o the people expelled by them [toLibya] are not threatened in their countries o origin.”35 Tis resolution wasadopted ollowing the action o the UN High Commissioner or Reugees(UNHCR) and various human rights associations denouncing the collectiveexpulsions o asylum-seekers to Libya that Italy organized between October

2004 and March 2006 (see Emanuela Paoletti’s chapter or urther detailsabout the collective expulsions).

A ew years later, neither the April 2005 EP resolution, nor the intenseadvocacy work o migrant-aid associations, nor the action o the oce o the UNHCR, have contributed to substantially reversing the trend. o thecontrary, Italy has broadened and reinorced its bilateral cooperation withLibya in the eld o readmission, raising serious concerns among humanrights organizations and the UN institutions regarding the respect o the

principle enshrined in international reugee standards, on theone hand, and the saety o the readmitted persons to Libya, on the other.

Te reinorcement o the bilateral cooperation became perceptible inMay 2009 when Italy set out to intercept migrants in international watersbeore they could reach the Italian coasts to subsequently orce them backto Libya. Hundreds o would-be immigrants and asylum-seekers have beenorcibly subjected to these operations. In September 2009, Human RightsWatch (HRW) published a detailed report36 on the dreadul conditions andill-treatment acing readmitted persons in Libya. Despite the ill-treatmentevidenced in the HRW report, the European Council called on the then-Swedish Presidency o the European Union and “the European Commissionto intensiy the dialogue with Libya on managing migration and responding

35. European Parliament, E P R L, April 14, 2005,http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do;jsessionid=8B5BEAAD5A39468ECA77F2

72A4E6D528.node2?pubRe=-//EP//EX+A+P6-A-2005-0138+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN.36. Human Rights Watch, P Bk P A: I’ F R B M

A Sk, Lb’ M M A Sk (New York:Human Rights Watch, 2009).




to illegal immigration, including cooperation at sea, border control andreadmission [while underlining] the importance o readmission agreementsas a tool or combating illegal immigration.”37 Tis intensied dialogue hasbecome part o the geographical priorities o the EU external relations listed

in the December 2009 Stockholm program.38

Te above case study shows that the need to respond to perceived threats doesnot only rest on operable means o implementation that are oen antonymousto transparency and to the respect o international commitments. It also restson the subtle denial o moral principles or perhaps on their inadequacy to judge what is right and wrong. Clearly, such a denial does not stem rom theignorance or ailure to recognize the value o international norms relatingto migrants’ rights, asylum-seekers, and the status o reugees. Rather, it

stemmed rst and oremost rom the z o operable means o implementation at all costs. In this respect, the interview made by HRW withFrontex39 deputy executive director, Gil Arias Fernández, is telling:

Based on our statistics, we are able to say that the agreements [betweenLibya and Italy] have had a positive impact. On the humanitarian level,ewer lives have been put at risk, due to ewer departures. But our agency [i.e., Frontex] does not have the ability to conrm i the right to request

asylum as well as other human rights are being respected in Libya.40

Te most eloquent aspect o Arias Fernández’s statement lies perhaps in thesubjective vision that the border has to be controlled in order to save the liveso those migrants seeking better living conditions in destination countries.Te bilateral cooperation on readmission is viewed as the best solution totackle the “humanitarian” crisis, regardless o whether the country wheremigrants are to be readmitted (i.e., Libya) already possesses the capacity to

37. European Council (2009a) B E C Ob 2930, 2009 PC, December 1, 2009, p. 12, http://www.consilium.europocs/cms_dataa.eu/ued /docs/pressdata/en/ec/110889.pd.

38. European Council, “Te Stockholm Programme — An open and secure Europeserving and protecting the citizens,” December 2, 2009, http://www.se2009.eu/polopoly_s/1.26419!menu/standard/le/Klar_Stockholmsprogram.pd.

39. Frontex stands or the European Agency or the Management o Operational Coop-

eration at the External Borders o the Member States o the European Union, http://www.rontex.europa.eu/.40. Human Rights Watch, P Bk P A: I’ F R B M

A Sk, Lb’ M M A Sk (2009), p.37.




ully respect the undamental human rights and the dignity o the removedpersons. Tis declaratory statement induces us to understand that it isbecause o the right to protect lie that power is exercised and rhetorically justied by the same token.

Tis subtle denial and its ensuing operable means o implementation havegradually contributed to diluting international norms and standards whichhad been viewed as being sound and secure.41 It is reective o the conictingrelationships between national interests and international commitments inwhich the removal o aliens is embedded. Lena Skoglund observed the sametension with reerence to whereby astate (e.g., a country o origin) promises that it will not torture or mistreata removed person viewed as a security threat by the law-enorcement

authorities o another state (e.g., a host country).42

Te predominant search or operability does not only undermine humanrights law. It may also alter the understanding o the notion o eectiveness.What is eective has become rst and oremost operable, but not necessarily in ull compliance with international standards. In this volume, EmanuelaPaoletti clearly shows that, over the last ew years, operability has become atop priority or Italy in its bilateral cooperation on readmission with Libya.

A SELF-FULFILLING SSEM OF REFERENCE

Te existence o a concourse structure, added to the consolidation o asecurity paradigm and its ensuing hierarchy o priorities constitute additionalconditions ostering the expansion o the web o agreements linked toreadmission. O course, the use o the abovementioned lexicon has beeninstrumental in translating the need to cooperate on readmission into a top

priority. Selsh relative gains could be overcome by the collective belie incommon priorities allowing the centrality o the state to be buttressed.

At the same time, the mobilization o a technical expertise has played akey role in sustaining dominant schemes o interpretation as applied tointernational migration while legitimizing the prioritization o operable andcost-eective means o implementation in the eld o readmission. Te state

41. Ruth Weinzierl, T D EU F R P E U’ E B ( Berlin: German Institute or Human Rights,2007).

42. Lena Skoglund, “Diplomatic Assurances Against orture — An Eective Strategy?”N J I Lw, Vol. 77 (2008), p. 363.




has been but one actor in the consolidation process o the concourse structuredescribed above. Trough the selective allocation o public unds, someprivate think tanks have been subcontracted to deliver a technical expertiselegitimizing a “orm” o top-down knowledge about international migration

and, above all, uncritically consolidating states’ hierarchy o priorities. oday,the production o knowledge about migration issues has become strategic, i not crucial, in political terms. By obstructing any alternative interpretationo a given problem, the production o a private expertise does not only pavethe way or dealing with the problem, but it also strays rom the cause o theproblem and subtly justies a unique technical solution as the lesser evil.Moreover, the emergence o a private technical expertise has contributed tothe production o a dominant scheme o interpretation about the currentchallenges linked with the movement o people by serving policy-makers’priorities without questioning their orientations.

Similarly, in the elds o the ght against unauthorized migration, detention,and readmission, private business concerns and large security corporationsave been increasingly mobilized to arguably minimize the costs (and visibility) o removal and to maximize its operability. In this respect, TomasGammelto-Hansen explains that:

oday, the privatisation o migration control is ar rom limited to air-lines or other transport companies. From the use o private contractorsto run immigration detention acilities and enorce returns and the useo private search ocers both at the border and at oshore control zones,to increasing market or visa acilitation agents, privatised migrationcontrol is both expanding and taking new orms.43

Te outsourcing o migration controls to private contractors and multinationalcorporations (MNCs) in the security and surveillance sectors (e.g., EADS,Finmeccanica, Sagem Sécurité, G4S, Geo Group, to mention just a ew) hasgained momentum over the last ten years or so as a result o an amazingly lucrative business.44

Reasons accounting or the privatization and delegation o some regulatory

43. Tomas Gammelto-Hansen, A A: I R Lw O O M C ( Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2009),p. 233.

44. Ben Hayes, NCO: T EU SI C ( Amsterdam: Teransnational Institute, 2009), p. 12.




unctions o the state are diverse. In a recent study, Michael Flynn andCecilia Cannon show that large security companies have penetrated nationalmigration control and surveillance systems in a number o countriesaround the globe, whether these are countries o destination or o origin,

not only because they are purportedly responsive to cost-eectiveness, butalso because their involvement enhances states’ ability to respond quickly and exibly to uncertainties and shocks.45 Te mobilization o privatecontractors does not question the managerial centrality o the state analyzedabove; above all when considering that “the state in most instances retainsclose managerial powers or behavioral inuence in terms o how privatizedmigration control is enacted and carried out.”46 What stands out, however, isthe evidenced lobbying and leverage capacity that MNCs can use to shapepolicy-makers’ perceived exigencies47 as well as those o the public opinion.While being inuential though not predominant in national systems, MNCsremain “masterless” in global systems, as Bruce Mazlish incisively wrote: “it isespecially in the latter realm [i.e., the global systems] that our new Leviathansare most powerul.”48

It could even be argued that a sel-ullling system o reerence is emergingwhereby the interests o the private remain intertwined with those o thepublic to respond and legitimize the abovementioned hierarchy o priorities

and its operable means o implementation. Incidentally, private security companies and MNCs do not only a service which, being private,oen remains beyond public purview, they are also proactive in developing“extremely close ties”49 with decision-makers and government ocials and inexpanding strategic alliances with other key private actors or subcontractors.Clearly, urther evidence is needed to understand the actual impact o these interconnections on policy options and priorities. Tere are orms o intererence that neither aect decision-making processes and policy options,

nor are they meant to do so substantially. However, some may entail theprovision o inormation that policymakers value in their day-to-day tasks.Inormation provision, which oen takes place through special advisory

45. Michael Flynn and Cecilia Cannon, T Pz I D: w Gb Vw, Global Detention Project Working Paper (Geneva: Te Graduate In-stitute, 2009).

46. Gammelto-Hansen, A A: I R Lw O

O M C , p. 236.47. Hayes, NCO: T EU SI C.48. Bruce Mazlish, T Nw Gb (London: Routledge, 2006), p. 37.49. Flynn and Cannon, T Pz I D: w Gb

Vw, p. 16.




committees, also implies how policy issues and exigencies can be perceivedand dealt with. It is reasonable to assume that the participation o privatecontractors’ sta in such committees, as evidenced by Ben Hayes (2009),may have contributed to consolidating the hierarchy o priorities mentioned

above and its security paradigm, while making its means o implementationi not more practicable, at least more banal, thinkable, and acceptable.

CONCLUSION

o understand where the signicant increase in the number o cooperativeagreements linked to readmission (whether standard or not) concludedbetween European and non-European countries lies today, one is obliged

to take into consideration a series o cumulative actors. I explained howmaterial and immaterial incentives, as well as migration salience, geographicalproximity and changed power relations constitute key actors shaping states’ variable capacities to deal with readmission. Additionally, the need orexible arrangements, which are in some cases more a necessity than anoption, has gradually led to the emergence o diverse cooperative patternson readmission. It is precisely the combination o these actors that has beenconducive to the expansion o the web o agreements linked to readmission.

At the same time, the consolidation o a dominant scheme o understandingas applied to the management o international migration has undeniably contributed to reiying the centrality o the state while legitimizing itsmodes o interventionism, its policy options, and a hierarchy o priorities.Without the existence o an unquestioned scheme o understanding or ,based on the use o hegemonic language and sustained by the repetition o regional consultative meetings (mobilizing state actors rom countries o origin, o transit, and o destination), neither the unbalanced reciprocitiesinherent in the cooperation on readmission would have become less criticalin the bargaining process, nor would the web o agreements have developedsimultaneously at the global level.

Saying that readmission is weaving its way through various policy areas only partly explains the reasons or which it has continued to stand high in states’current hierarchy o priorities. Its prioritization is arguably linked with thegrowing awareness shared by all countries o migration that it allows their

coercive regulatory capacity to be expressed when needed. For it not only categorizes, by means o legal provisions, the desirable and useul aliens, onthe one hand, and the undesirable and disposable aliens, on the other, but alsoredenes the contours o a taken-or-granted sense o belonging and identity.




It is under these circumstances raught with dominant subjectivities andcommonplace ideas that the cooperation on readmission has been brandedas the only technical solution able “to combat illegal migration.” It has beenpresented as a lesser evil able to tackle a common international challenge

or threat while making states perhaps less careul about their own relativegains in the cooperation on readmission and undeniably ar less sensitiveto the reasons or which those who are viewed as illegal or undesirable letheir homeland, let alone their dreadul conditions. Hannah Arendt wrote,with reerence to some o the darkest times o Europe’s recent history, that“acceptance o lesser evils is consciously used in conditioning the governmentocials as well as the population at large to the acceptance o evil as such.”50 I would add to Arendt’s argument that the reerence to a lesser evil ostersconsensus ormation beyond national interests and subtly justies, by thesame token, the use o operable means that might weaken the enorceability o universal norms and standards on human rights without necessarily ignoringor denying their existence. In other words, the acceptance o the lesser evillters and shapes our categories o thought. Te Italian-Libyan pattern o cooperation on readmission, on which the authors ocus extensively in this volume, is perhaps the most emblematic case.

It is against this background that the cooperation on readmission, as it stands

now in international interaction, involves more than an absolute duty to re-accept one’s own nationals or a mere administrative device.

When aced with these conditions, one is entitled to wonder whether it is stillreasonable to wallow in the denunciation o some states’ ailure to ully respecttheir international commitments regarding the rights and human dignity o readmitted persons. o be sure, naming oenders is crucial. However, abuseand violations have become so glaringly obvious and arrogantly justiablethrough the lens o the “lesser evil” that their public denunciation might lead

to no concrete change, i not to the paradoxical acceptance o things as they are (“we cannot do otherwise”). ogether with the denunciation o repeated violations, a thorough examination o dominant schemes o interpretation hasto be provided in order to instill in the minds o ocials and constituenciesalike a sense o doubt and skepticism about the lesser evil and the drive oroperability. Tis is what the authors set out to do by investigating what isreally happening on the ground. In sum, the point is to understand.

50. Hannah Arendt, Rb J [ed. by Jerome Kohn] (New York: Scho-ken Books, 2003), pp. 36-37.



C 2

Readmission in the Relations between Italy and

North Arican Mediterranean Countries

Paolo Cuttitta

his chapter investigates how Italy has dealt with the readmission o unau-thorized migrants in the ramework o its bilateral relations with North A-

rican Mediterranean countries (henceorth “NAMCs”). Tis reers not only to removals rom Italy but also to 1) removals carried out by North Aricancountries on behal o Italy, 2) removals carried out by NAMCs with the -nancial and technical support o Italy, 3) removals carried out by NAMCs asa result o Italian pressure, and 4) “push-back” operations aimed at intercept-ing migrants on the high seas and returning them to North Arican sourcecountries.

A PLURALI OF COOPERAIVE FRAMEWORKS ON READMISSION

o date, Italy has signed several types o agreements dealing with the re-admission o third-country nationals with Morocco (1998), unisia (1998),Algeria (2000), and Egypt (2007). No standard readmission agreement hasbeen concluded so ar with Libya (see able 2).

In order to evaluate the eectiveness o Italian ormal and inormal read-

mission agreements, comprehensive data are needed. Tese include data onreadmitting countries as well as on the nationalities o the migrants removedby the Italian law-enorcement agencies. Such data reer to both reusals atthe border (or immediately aer border crossing) and removals rom Italianterritory (including not only the total number o removal orders but also thenumber o eected removals). However, gures provided by Italian authori-ties are scarce or incomplete, and no detailed data on the last ew years areavailable.

Some available data are presented in ables 3, 4 and 5. able 3 is based on




ocial data1 that only reer to the number o eective removals comparedwith the total number o apprehended unauthorized migrants. Tese guresprovide an overview o the eectiveness o readmission procedures withcountries o origin. able 4 is based on data reported by Caritas/Migrantes.2

It has to be said that the data reported in able 4 contrast with those reportedin able 3.3 able 5 is based on data o the Italian institution responsible orthe audit o the state budget’s management4 and shows the eectiveness rateo detention or the purpose o expulsion.

In Italy, undocumented migrants cannot be readmitted or removed to a thirdcountry without the prior issuance o a travel document delivered by theconsular authorities o the third country. I the redocumentation processcannot take place during the maximum period o detention, by law the mi-

grant must be released. S/he is ordered to leave the country within ve days,but most o these migrants probably remain irregularly. Italian Minister o Interior, Roberto Maroni, claimed that only 1,640 out o 4,474 detained mi-grants could be repatriated rom January to April 2009, due to insucienttime to redocument them. In 2002, the maximum duration o detention wasextended rom thirty to sixty days. In order to speed up the redocumenta-tion process, which requires cooperation with third-country authorities, thethen-Prodi government (2006−2008) oered countries o origin technical

assistance (e.g., computerized database systems or identity checks). In 2009,the Berlusconi government extended the maximum duration o detentionrom 60 to 180 days.

Next, let us examine the main agreements and patterns o cooperation onreadmission and removals with reerence to each North Arican Mediter-ranean country.

1. Ministry o the Interior, “Te Status o Security in Italy” (Rome: 2007)2. Caritas/Migrantes, Iz. D 2004 [Immigration. Statistical Dos-

sier 2004], XIV Rapporto (Rome: Idos, 2004).3. Lorenzo Coslovi and Flavia Piperno, “Forced Return and Ten? Analysis o the Impact

o the Expulsion o Dierent Categories o Migrants: A Comparative Study o Albania, Mo-rocco and Nigeria,” Centro Studidi Politica Internazionale Working Papers, No. 13 (2005)and Projet Mirem, http://www.mirem.eu report gures which dier rom both the aore-mentioned. Coslovi and Piperno report gures related only to Morocco, while Projet Mirem

reports gures regarding Morocco, Algeria, and unisia..4. Corte dei Conti [Court o Auditors], “Relazione sul rendiconto generale dello Stato perl’esercizio nanziario 2004” [General Report on Fiscal Year 2004) Volume II, t. II (Rome:Corte dei Conti, 2005], p. 73, http://www.corteconti.it/controllo/nanza_pubblica/bilan-ci_manovra_leggi/rendiconto_generale_2004/.




MOROCCO

Italy and Morocco signed a readmission agreement in July 1998 which hasnot yet been ratied. Nonetheless, removals rom Italy have been carried out

since then, leading to an increase in the number o removed Moroc-can nationals ollowing the signature o the agreement.5 However, the eec-tiveness o the agreement never met the expectations o the Italian authori-ties owing to the slow redocumentation process o unauthorized migrants.Moreover, the Moroccan authorities lack an ecient computerized systemor ngerprinting identication and can readmit just a small number o re-documented nationals at a time.

Because Morocco is not a last transit country or migrants to Italy,

the readmission o third-country nationals rom Italy (as well as the removalo third-country nationals rom Morocco to its neighboring Arican coun-tries) has had little importance in the relationships between the two coun-tries.

UNISIA

unisia and Italy signed an agreement on both readmission and police co-operation in August 1998. Te contracting parties committed to readmittingtheir own nationals as well as third-country nationals (with the exception o the nationals o the Arab Maghreb Union) who transited rom their respec-tive national territories. Te agreement entered into orce on September 23,1999.

Since July 2000, joint border control operations have been coordinated by aliaison ocer o the Italian Ministry o Interior based in unis. In December

2003, a new agreement reinorced the bilateral cooperation on “the controlo vessels suspected o transporting illegal migrants.” Italy and unisia alsodecided to set up liaison oces in both countries.6

From 2003 to 2007, bilateral police cooperation between Italian and unisian

5. Coslovi and Piperno, “Forced Return and Ten? Analysis o the Impact o the Expul-sion o Dierent Categories o Migrants: A Comparative Study o Albania, Morocco and

Nigeria,” p. 21.6. Alessandro Pansa, “L’esperienza italiana nel contesto internazionale” [“Te Italian Ex-perience in the International Context”], C Iz ’ I (Rome: Scuola Superiore Amministrazio-ne dell’Interno, 2004).






at speeding up the identication process and at acilitating removals romItalian detention centers.

LIBA

Te expulsion o migrants is not a new issue in Libyan recent history. Libyahas been an immigration country since oil was discovered there in the 1960s.Furthermore, migrants rom both NAMCs and sub-Saharan countries wereoccasionally subject to collective expulsions and acts o mass violence11 longbeore Libya decided to tighten migration controls in cooperation with Italy.

Te continuous and systematic mass expulsions carried out since 2003 havebeen encouraged by Italian pressure. In 1998, the Italian government started

negotiations on the joint management o migration ows. A police coopera-tion agreement was signed in December 2000, and an Italian investigationunit was established in ripoli in May 2003.12 wo months later, an executiveagreement was signed, but its contents have never been made public.13 Lib-yan authorities repatriated about 43,000 irregular migrants in 2003, 54,000in 2004, and 47,991 in 2005. Tey were mainly nationals rom sub-SaharanArican countries and Egypt. Some were caught while trying to leave or Italy rom Libya. Many others seemed “to have been arrested on a random basis.”14

Until September 2004, all migrants repatriated by Libyan authorities hadbeen apprehended on Libyan territory. Eventually, Libya agreed to readmitunauthorized migrants removed rom Italy, although no standard readmis-sion agreement has ever been signed.

In a span o sixteen months, Italy removed about 3,000 people (see Emanu-ela Paoletti’s chapter). Most o them were subsequently removed rom Libyato neighboring countries. Removals rom Libya continued even aer Italy stopped removals in early 2006 as a result o strong criticisms rom interna-

11. Olivier Pliez, “ De l’Immigration au ransit? La Libye dans l’Espace Migratoire Euro-Aricain” [“ ransit o Immigration? Libya in the Euro-Arican Migratory Space”], in Oli-

vier Pliez, ed., L N Lb: Séé, E Gé L ’Eb [Te New Libya: Society, Space and Geopolitics in the Aermath o the Embargo”](Paris: Karthala, 2004), pp. 139-155.

12. On September 12, 2006 in Rome the Libyan and Italian governments agreed that aliaison ocer o the Libyan ministry o interior would be dispatched to Rome.

13. Te Italian minister o interior Pisanu declared that making public the contents o the

agreement “would heavily damage its operability and eectiveness” (Camera dei Deputati2003c).14. European Commission, echnical Mission to Libya on Illegal Migration, November

27 –December 6, 2004 Report, No. 7753/05 (Brussels: European Commission, 2005), http://www.statewatch.org/news/2005/may/eu-report-libya-ill-imm.pd.




tional institutions and NGOs. According to Frontex,15 53,842 expulsionswere carried out in 2006, whereas around 60,000 migrants were held in Lib-yan detention centers in May 2007. According to the International Centeror Migration Policy Development,16 in 2006, the number o migrants de-

ported was 86,006 and 30,940 in 2007. In January 2008, Libyan authoritiesannounced that they would “gather all oreigners illegally residing in Libyaor immediate deportation,”17 and in 2009, while launching a regularizationprogram or oreign workers, the Libyan authorities declared that all irregu-lar migrants would be repatriated upon conclusion o the procedures.18 Itshould be stressed that not all migrants detained in Libya are actually ex-pelled: many o them “are le in the desert within Libyan territory” or aresold to smugglers by the Libyan police.19 Furthermore, Libyan authoritieshave not repatriated Eritrean and Somali asylum seekers in recent years (asthey had done until 2004); many o them are kept in Libyan detention cen-ters or years.

Following the 2003 agreement, two memoranda o understanding on policecooperation (dated February 6, 2005 and January 18, 2006), and addition-al agreements were concluded by Italy and Libya. Over the past ew years,several migrant boats were reaccepted by the Libyan authorities rom inter-national waters.20 Te new police cooperation agreement dated December

2007 also oresees the joint patrolling o Libyan territorial waters. However,eective implementation started only in May 2009, nine months aer Italy agreed to sign the reaty o Friendship, Partnership and Cooperation. Whenthe treaty was ratied (in February 2009), Libya agreed to sign an executiveprotocol to the 2007 agreement.

May 2009 marked a watershed in Italian-Libyan relations. Not only did the

15. Frontex, “Frontex-Led EU Illegal Immigration Mission to Libya May 28-June 5, 2007”(Warsaw: Frontex, 2007), p. 10, http://www.statewatch.org/news/2007/oct/eu-libya-rontex-report.pd.

16. International Centre or Migration Policy Development, “Gaps & Needs AnalysisProject Country Reports: Ethiopia, Kenya, Libya” (Vienna: 2008), p. 94.

17. Jamahiriya News Agency: “Gathering oreigners illegally residing in Libya or imme-diate deportation,” January 16, 2008. http://www.jananews.ly/Page.aspx?PageId=2564.

18. Lorenzo Coslovi, “La regolarizzazione in Libia: verso una migliore gestione delle mi-grazioni?” [“Regularized Migrants: owards Better Migration Management”], Centro Stu-didi Politica Internazionale, No. 7 (2009), p. 5.

19. Human Rights Watch, Pushed Back Pushed Around: Italy’s Forced Return o BoatMigrants and Asylum Seekers, Libya’s Mistreatment o Migrants and Asylum Seekers (NewYork: Human Rights Watch, 2009), pp. 15, 70-73.

20. Fortress Europe, “Escape From ripoli, Report on the Conditions o Migrants in ran-sit in Libya” (2007), http://ortresseurope.blogspot.com.




joint patrolling o Libyan waters begin, but Italy also started pushing backmigrants in international waters to Libya. Italian law enorcement authori-ties no longer expel migrants who have already arrived on Italian territory, asthey had rom 2004 to 2006. oday, they intercept migrants on the high seas,

take them aboard, and return them to ripoli or Zuwahra, or hand them overto Libyan patrol boats aer interception.21 According to the UNHRC (2010),would-be asylum seekers and unaccompanied minors have been orcibly re-moved, without prior identication and without being given the possibility o claiming or asylum. Italy seems to have acted in breach o internationallaw. Since being expelled to Libya in May 2009, numerous Eritreans and So-malis have lodged applications with the European Court o Human Rightsagainst Italy.22 Te European Commission requested clarications rom Italy aer 70 persons (thought to be Somali and Eritrean nationals) were pushedback on August 30, 2009. Nevertheless, Italian authorities kept on removingmigrants to Libya, claiming that none o them has ever expressed the wish toapply or asylum.23

In recent years, Libya has also signed cooperation agreements on bordercontrols with neighboring countries, such as Chad, Niger, Sudan, and Egypt.Furthermore, at the request o Italy, Libya signed a cooperation agreementwith the International Organization or Migration (IOM) in 2005. Te IOM

ripoli oce has managed the 28-month ransit and Irregular MigrationManagement (RIM) project, unded by the Italian government and the Eu-ropean Union. Tis project was aimed at providing unauthorized migrantsliving in Libya with the opportunity to return to Niger and Chad under thesupervision o the UNHCR.

21. According to vice-minister o Interior, Alredo Mantovano, eight operations werecarried out and 757 migrants were pushed back rom international waters to Libya romMay 5 to August 30, See “Mantovano: 757 i respingimenti” [“Minister Mantovano: 757 Re-moved Migrants”], A, September 22, 2009). Fortress Europe (2009) numbered, however,nine operations o this kind involving 898 persons during the same period.

22. Hirsi and Others vs. Italy (Application No. 27765/09), see UNHCR (2010).23. Council o Europe (2010), “Report to the Italian Government on the visit to Italy

carried out by the European Committee or the Prevention o orture and Inhuman or De-grading reatment or Punishment (CP) rom 27 to 31 July 2009,” CP/In (Strasbourg:

Council o Europe, April 28, 2010), http://www.cpt.coe.int/documents/ita/2010-in-14-eng.pd; Council o Europe, “Response o the Italian government to the report o the EuropeanCommittee or the Prevention o orture and Inhuman or Degrading reatment or Punish-ment (CP) on its visit to Italy rom 27 to 31 July 2009,” CP/In (Strasbourg: Council o Europe, April 28, 2010), http://www.cpt.coe.int/documents/ita/2010-in-15-eng.pd.




EGP

Italian authorities oen praise Egypt as the paragon o eectiveness in theght against unauthorized migration. In recent years, thousands o Egyptian

citizens have been readmitted to Egypt rom Italy, while hundreds o transitmigrants have been repatriated rom Egyptian territory with the support o Italian authorities.

As regards transit migration, thousands o Sri Lankan nationals entered theRed Sea and reached the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal until 2002.Forty-seven ships with 3,842 passengers aboard arrived in Calabria and Sic-ily in 2001 and 2002.24 On the basis o the police cooperation agreementsigned in 2000, and upon urther inormal agreements concluded in 2002, an

Italian liaison ocer was dispatched to Egypt, enabling joint control o theSuez Canal to commence. Egyptian authorities conscated the ships. Mean-while, between 2003 and 2004, 524 passengers were orcibly returned to SriLanka on planes chartered by the Italian government.

As regards the readmission o Egyptian unauthorized migrants, the coopera-tion was considered satisactory by the Italian authorities as early as Decem-ber 2003, although no standard readmission agreements were signed at thattime.25 Te number o Egyptians arriving irregularly by sea skyrocketed rom

102 (2003) to 8,782 (2004) and 10,288 (2005), and then dropped to 4,478 in2006. Until 2005, Egyptians had traveled rst to Libya, and rom there head-ed to Italy.26 Entry restrictions and increased controls over Libyan border-

24. Alessandro Pansa, “L’esperienza italiana nel contesto internazionale” [“Te ItalianExperience in the International Context”], C Iz ’ I [International Conerence on the Analysiso Italian Legal Procedures Related to Human racking], Scuola Superiore Amministra-zione dell’Interno, Rome, 2004; Alessandro Pansa, “Le Proposte Del Governo Italiano ALivello Comunitario in Materia Di Immigrazione” [“Te Proposals o the Italian Gover-nment out orward at an EU level on Migration Issues”], Convegno SIDI “le migrazioni: unasda per il diritto internazionale, comunitario e interno” [SIDI Conerence on “Migration:A Challenge or Internatiaional, Community and National Laws”], Scuola Superiore Ammi-nistrazione dell’Interno, Rome, 2004), http://www.stranieriinitalia.it/briguglio/immigrazio-ne-e-asilo/2005/maggio/pansa-conv-sidi.pd.

25. Chamber o Deputies, “Audizione del Direttore centrale dell’immigrazione e dellaPolizia delle rontiere del Ministero dell’interno, preetto Alessandro Pansa” [“Hearing o

the Director o Immigration and Border Agency o the Ministry o the Interior”], Sedutadel 3/12/2003 [December 3, 2003 Session], 2003, http://www.camera.it/_dati/leg14/lavori/stenbic/30/2003/1203/s020.htm.

26. Sara Hamood, “Arican ransit Migration Trough Libya to Europe: Te HumanCost,” Forced Migration and Reugees Studies (Cairo: Te American University In Cairo,




lands generated an increase in the number o Egyptians leaving directly romEgyptian territory to reach Italy (i.e., without transiting through Libya).

In 2004 and 2005 many Egyptians were removed rom Italy to Libya (theirlast transit country) and then rom Libya to Egypt, whereas others were repa-

triated directly rom Italy to Egypt. Data on the actual number o readmittedEgyptian nationals are scarce (see ables 3 and 4). Hundreds o Egyptianswere repatriated every year in the ramework o bilateral police cooperationagreements. Cooperation with Egypt was considered “excellent” by the Ital-ian authorities.27 Aer Italy stopped deportations to Libya in 2006, Egyptianswere repatriated directly rom Italy to their home country. Egyptian policeocers cooperated with their Italian counterparts on repatriation to orga-nize charter ights.

In January 2007, Italy became the rst EU Member State to sign a standardreadmission agreement with Egypt. Te treaty came into orce on April 25,2008. It oresees the readmission o the nationals o the contracting partiesas well as the removal o third-country nationals.

ALGERIA

Te readmission o unauthorized Algerian nationals rom Italy has been car-ried out or many years, although the eectiveness rate has been very low(see ables 3-5). When Sardinia became a new landing point or an increas-ing number o migrants arriving rom Algeria (see able 1), Italy started (in2000) to exert more pressure on Algeria to ratiy a readmission agreement.Tis agreement entered into orce on October 14, 2006. Given that unauthor-ized migration rom Algeria to Italy has never gained momentum, thus arreadmission has not been an issue o high politics in the bilateral relation-

ship between Italy and Algeria.28

In recent years, Algerian authorities have also reinorced the surveillancesystem o their maritime borders with a view toward intercepting boats

2006), pp. 26, 63-64, http://www.migreurop.org/IMG/pd/hamood-libya.pd.27. Italian Embassy in Cairo, “La cooperazione tra i ministeri dell’interno italiano ed

egiziano, Nota inormativa,” [“Cooperation between the Italian and Egyptian Ministries o the Interior: Note”], October 9, 2007.

28. From 2000 to September 2007, about 40,000 oreigners were apprehended and 27,567were expelled by the Algerian authorities, see Fortress Europe and Aracem,E .R z A [S E: C M A] ( 2007), http://www.programmaintegra.it/modules/dms/le_retrieve.php?unction=view&obj_id=1486




to Italy and pushing back migrants to Algeria. It is uncertain whethersuch operations have been carried out in Algerian or in international waters.In June 2009, Algerian and Italian authorities initiated joint patrolling op-erations. On June 14, 2009, the Italian G Fz and the Algerian

navy intercepted a boat o the Algerian coast carrying with 150 migrantswho were then sent back to Algeria.

In July 2009, Italy and Algeria signed a new agreement aimed at strengtheningpolice cooperation through training programs and exchange o inormation.

INCENIVES AND REWARDS

Not only do NAMCs lack the necessary resources to tackle irregular migra-tion eectively but they oen lack willingness to cooperate on this issue. Asmentioned in the introductory chapter o this volume, their unwillingnessto cooperate in the long term stems rom the act that Morocco, unisia, Al-geria, and Egypt have viewed migration as a saety valve to relieve pressureon domestic unemployment and as a source o external revenues or theirrespective economies. Nor do countries o transit have a stake in curbing ir-regular migration, or they too benet rom transit migration ows, whether

these are legal or not.Additionally, NAMCs may be reluctant to jeopardize their relations withneighboring countries by closing borders. Tis assumption applies particu-larly to Libya. Importantly, all NAMCs should not be viewed simply as emi-gration and transit countries. Tey are also destination countries .Libya has been a destination country since the 1960s, whereas Morocco, Al-geria, unisia, and Egypt have become immigration countries over the lastdecade.29 Te demand or cheap oreign labor in NAMCs may increase in the

near uture.30

29. North Arica has become a large migration area characterized by dierent migrationpatterns that cannot be reduced to the notion o “transit migration.” See Salvatore Palidda,“Le nuove migrazioni verso i paesi del nord-Arica e verso l’Europa” [“New Migration Flowstowards North Arican Countries and Europe”] , in ISMU. N R z [Ninth Migration Report] (Milan: Angeli, 2003). See also Frank Düvell, “Crossing the ring-es o Europe. ransit migration in the EU’s neighbourhood,” Working Paper No. 33 (Oxord:

University o Oxord, Center on Migration, Policy and Society 2006).30. Hein De Haas, “Te Myth o Invasion: Irregular Migration rom West Arica to theMaghreb and the European Union,” Research Report (Oxord: International Migration In-stitute, 2007), http://www.imi.ox.ac.uk/pds/Irregular%20migration%20rom%20West%20Arica%20-%20Hein%20de%20Haas.pd.






ly over time. For instance, the Moroccan reserved share was halved in 2001,because the Italian government deemed the cooperation to be insucient.In 2001, the provisions o the 1998 agreement regarding police equipmentto be supplied rom Italy to the unisian border police expired. Irregular ar-

rivals rom unisia started to increase. Te reserved share or unisian citi-zens, which initially increased rom 1,500 to 3,000, dropped to 2,000 (2002)and then to only 600 (2003). Later, a new Italian-unisian police cooperationagreement was signed on December 13, 2003, aer Italy promised to increasethe 2004 reserved share or unisian migrant workers. Six days aer its con-clusion, the Italian government increased the unisian share to 3,000 entry visas.

Algerian citizens were also granted a reserved share. Te reserved share was

not only a way o rewarding the ratication o the readmission agreementby Algeria in October 2006, but also an incentive to improve or ensure theeective bilateral cooperation in the eld o readmission.

Clearly, as Libya is not an emigration country, such orms o incentives werenot considered in the bargaining process to ensure the cooperation o theLibyan authorities. However, to reward Libya’s reinorced cooperation, Italy granted a reserved share or Libyan nationals in 2010 amounting to 1,000entry visas.

Conditional development aid

Development cooperation with Morocco and Algeria was resumed in 1998(when the Italian-Moroccan readmission agreement was signed) and in1999 (when the Italian-Algerian police cooperation agreement was signed)respectively. Italy and Egypt signed a debt swap agreement in February 2001,i.e.,, eight months ollowing the conclusion o a bilateral police cooperationagreement. Consequently, the number o Italian development cooperationprojects in Egypt has substantially increased.

Te way in which Italy has conditionally linked development aid with the co-operation on readmission is quite emblematic in the case o unisia. In 1992-1993, unisia was at the sixth place in the list o the major recipients o Italy’social development assistance (ODA). A ew years later, when migrant boatsstarted to arrive to Sicily, unisia was downgraded in the above list.

Italian ODA granted to unisia is determined by a joint Italian-unisian




commission. From 1991 to 1998, the commission did not meet once.32 How-ever, on August 3-5, 1998, the commission resumed its works and estab-lished a new program oering unisia €108.44 million loans and €3.31 mil-lion grants or the period 1999−2001. Te resumption o talks preceded the

conclusion o the bilateral readmission agreement on August 6, 1998. Later,another €33 million loan and a €7.23 million grant were added, reaching atotal amount o about €152 million. In 2001, the joint commission allocated€36.5 million loans and €71.75 million grants or the period 2002−2004, plus€6.42 million.

In 2004, the same commission allocated substantial nancial resources (€179million loans and €2.98 million grants) or the 2005−2007 period ollowingthe signature o the December 2003 police cooperation agreement.

Tere is no question that such nancial incentives were conditionally linkedwith unisia’s acceptance to take part in reinorced border and migrationcontrol in cooperation with Italy. Tis conditionality was not only conduciveto the conclusion o the 1998 readmission agreements (based on a verbalnote dated 1998) and o the 2003 police cooperation agreement. It may alsohave induced unisia to join the International Organization or Migration(IOM) in 1999 and to authorize the establishment o its unis-based oce in2001. Since its creation, the IOM oce has developed projects co-nanced

by Italian public unds in such areas as the management o legal migration,economic development o unisian regions with high emigration rate, andthe reinorced management o transit and irregular migration in unisia.

It has to be said that, since 2002, the need to tie development aid with bi-lateral cooperation on migration management gained urther momentumwhen the Italian government voted in September 2002 a legal provision (law189/2002) aimed at conditionally linking development assistance with eec-tive cooperation on the ght against unauthorized migration. Cooperationand aid programmes are subject to reassessment i the relevant countries donot adopt appropriate measures.33

As ar as the use o development aid is concerned, the Development Assis-tance Committee o the OECD called on Italy to urther untie its assistanceto unisia arguing that “moves towards a revision o Italy’s untying policy tobring it in line with best practice at international level would undoubtedly

32. All Italian development cooperation projects were subject to cuts aer 1992, but u-nisia was the most aected.

33. More recently, the principle o conditional development cooperation was conrmedby article 13 o law 69/2009.




add to the donor community’s joint eorts towards a greater eectiveness o aid.”34

echnical assistance, inancial assistance and training

Te Italian Ministry o Interior has supplied the law enorcement agencieso NAMCs with technical equipment and oered training programs or theirborder police ocials. Furthermore, Italy has granted nancial aid or “returnights,” and it has built (or oered its nancial contribution or the buildingo) centers or the management o irregular migration ows.

Egyptian police ocers have been oered training programs since 2004.

Most o the activities took place in Italy. Furthermore, Egyptian police havebeen equipped with technical instruments or the detection o orged docu-ments and with maritime vehicles to patrol maritime borders. A new patrolboat was handed over to Egyptian authorities aer the signature o the Janu-ary 2007 readmission agreement.

In 1998, Italy provided unisia with €20.7 million in technical equipmentor the three-year period 1999−2001. Te 1998 agreement also stated thatthe Italian government would contribute €260,000 to “the establishment o

detention centers in unisia” in order to oster the repatriation o oreignmigrants removed rom Italy. Tis was the only provision o the agreementthat unisia did not accept in the end, probably earing Italian intererencesin domestic questions such as the management o detention centers (includ-ing detention conditions) and the expulsion o migrants.

Aer the expiration o the 1998 agreement, a urther €12.5 million worthequipment was supplied in 2002 and 2003 through development assistance.Further assistance to unisia (including training programs and technical

equipment) was agreed upon by a meeting o experts held in unis in Febru-ary 2007.

Te Italian government has been providing training courses or Libyan bor-der ocers since 2004. From August 2003 to December 2004, Italy suppliedLibyan authorities with technical equipment including night-vision devices,binoculars, all terrain vehicles (AV), mattresses and blankets, lie boats, andsacks or the transportation o corpses. During the same period Italy paid 50

34. Organization or Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), “2004DAC Peer Review o Italy” (Paris: OECD, 2004), pp. 38, 54, 58, http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/21/43/33954223.pd.




charter ights to remove 5,688 individuals rom Libya to ten dierent coun-tries.35 No detailed inormation regarding the granting o technical equip-ment is available or the period 2005-2006, but on February 6, 2005 a memo-randum was signed in ripoli: Italy promised appropriate supply to Libyan

authorities or the implementation o a reinorced border control system.Italy also decided to nance the construction o three detention centers inLibya: between 2004 and 2005 €6.6 million were allocated or a center inGharyan and €5.2 million or a center in Kura, while another detention cen-ter was expected to be built in Sebha.36 Following the election o the center-le Prodi government, the Italian authorities decided to change the use o the above centers. Te center o Gharyan was opened in June 2007 as a train-ing center or Libyan police ocers, whereas the Kura center was renamed

as a border medical center, and the construction o the detention center inSebha was given up.37 However, or sovereignty reasons, the Prodi govern-ment made clear that the Libyan authorities would decide how to use thecenters .

In 2007, Italy supplied Libya with instruments or the detection o orgeddocuments, ve GPS-equipped AVs, seven computers and seven satellitecommunication systems, as well as six patrol boats or use by Libyan borderocers. Te implementation o the 2007 agreement (providing or the cre-

ation o joint border patrols) was contingent on the conclusion o a reaty o Friendship, Partnership, and Cooperation dated August 2008 and ratied by the Italian parliament in February 2009. Te main provisions contained inthe treaty are described below. It has to be stressed that Italy is the only EUMember State that managed to implement cooperative projects (co-nancedby the EU) in Libya.

35. European Commission, “echnical Mission to Libya on Illegal Migration 27 Novem-ber – 6 December 2004,” Report 7753/05 (Brussels: European Commission, 2005), pp. 59-61, http://www.statewatch.org/news/2005/may/eu-report-libya-ill-imm.pd.

36. European Commission Report (2005), pp. 59; C C [Court o Auditors],“Relazione sul rendiconto generale dello Stato per l’esercizio nanziario 2005” [“Report onthe State General Account or Fiscal Year 2005], Volume II, t. II, (Rome: Corte dei Conti,2006), p. 32, http://www.corteconti.it/controllo/nanza_pubblica/bilanci_manovra_leg-gi/rendiconto_generale_2004/; Ministry o the Interior, “Te Status o Security in Italy”(Rome: 2005), p. 43.

37. Chamber o Deputies (2007), “Risposta del sottosegretario Marcella Lucidi all’inter-pellanza urgente n. 2-00623 del 26 giugno 2007” [“Undersecretary Marcela Lucidi’s reply to urgent convocation n. 2-00623 o June 26, 2007”], Seduta del 5/7/2007 [July 5, 2007 Ses-sion], http://leg15.camera.it/resoconti/dettaglio_resoconto.asp?idSeduta=0184&resoconto=stenograco&indice=alabetico&tit=00090&ase=00060.






contribute to the liing o the embargos. Such leverage became perceptiblein its interaction with Italy. Gadha was suspected o voluntarily regulat-ing the intensity o unauthorized migration ows to Europe by alternatively tightening and easing border controls.

V Italy and the EU tried to make the liing o European sanctionsconditionally linked with Libya’s willingness to combat irregular transit mi-gration. In particular, Italy played a key role as mediator between Libya andthe other Member States. In exchange or a reinorced Libyan involvementin the ght against irregular migration, Italy oered not only nancial andlogistical assistance, but also began to express support or the liing o allsanctions against Libya.

When the rst bilateral police cooperation agreement was concluded in De-

cember 2000, Italy intensied its diplomatic eorts to rehabilitate the Libyanregime into the international community.

Libya’s cooperation on migration and border controls constituted only oneo the other actors that led to the liing o the embargo by the EU. Whereasthe liing o the UN and US sanctions against Libya was motivated by dier-ent actors,40 the EU embargo was lied when, in October 2004, Libya agreedor the rst time to readmit unauthorized aliens rom Italy.41

Te gradual liing o the sanctions against Libya was accompanied by a with the West. In turn, this process has gradually reconguredLibya’s relations with its Arican neighbors, especially ollowing its accep-tance to reinorce the control o its southern borders.

It is noteworthy that the previously mentioned occurredagainst the backdrop o repeated compensation claims by Libya against Italy stemming rom the colonial period (1911-1943).

In 1998, the Italian government apologized or the atrocities committed by the ormer colonial regime in Libya and promised compensation. Libya notonly requested the construction o a coastal highway as an initial compensa-tory measure, but conditioned the reinorcement o its police cooperationwith Italy on a ormal commitment by the Italian government to build thehighway. Italian Minister o Foreign Aairs Massimo D’Alema (on Novem-

40. UN sanctions were removed in September 2003, aer Libya agreed to compensate the

amilies o the victims o the attacks on a US (1988) and a French (1989) airplane. US sanc-tions were lied in April 2004 when Gadha promised to dismantle the country’s weaponso mass destruction programs.

41. Another decisive step was Libya’s decision, dated September 2004, to compensate orthe 1986 bomb attack in a disco in Berlin.




ber 10, 2007 in ripoli) and Prime Minister Romano Prodi (on December9, 2007 in Lisbon) expressed this commitment, which was cemented by thesigning o the August 2008 reaty o Friendship, Partnership, and Coopera-tion.42

Te treaty also oresees the strengthening o bilateral economic cooperation.Here it should be mentioned that Italian-Libyan relations have long beencharacterized by strong economic interests. When the embargo was enorced,Italy remained Libya’s major trade partner. More recently, in 2004, ollowingthe visit o Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to Mellitah (Libya), thebiggest Mediterranean gas pipeline was opened to channel methane to Italy.Te pipeline was built by the Italian public-owned oil company E Nz Ib (ENI), which is the exclusive partner o the Libyan National

Oil Corporation (NOC), and manages the Mellitah extraction plant. ENI isexpected to invest $14 billion over the next ten years in the extraction o gasand oil in Libya. Its exclusive concession rights will not expire until 2047.

Italy has developed strong economic ties with all o the North Arican coun-tries. Italy is Egypt’s leading trade partner and one o the major trade part-ners o unisia, Algeria, and Morocco. Given the lack o transparency thatsurrounds the bilateral negotiations o agreements linked to readmission, itis dicult to ascertain whether there is a clear-cut cause-and-eect relation-

ship between preerential trade concessions and cooperation on readmission.Nonetheless, one is tempted to think that these concessions may have had animpact on NAMCs’ motivations to cooperate with Italy on the reinorcedcontrol o migration and borders, just as they may also have had a bearingon the way in which the bilateral cooperation has been congured to date.Tus the issue o readmission, and particularly states’ propensity to cooper-ate at bilateral level, cannot be analyzed and understood without reerring toa broader ramework o interaction.

CONCLUSION

For many years, NAMCs have cooperated with Italy on readmission whilecontributing to the establishment and expansion o a network aimed at regu-lating human movements in the Mediterranean. Whereas removals o unau-thorized aliens to Libya (involving third-country nationals) were carried out

42. On the basis o this wide-ranging treaty, both countries agreed that Italy — or ratherItalian private companies in the building sector — would build inrastructure in Libya in theamount o $5 billion ($250 million each year over a 20-year period).




or only sixteen months between 2004 and 2006, and were resumed in May 2009, removals to the other NAMCs (which applied predominantly to theirown nationals) have never been interrupted, despite their having a low anderratic eectiveness rate, as reported on able 3.

Tis chapter shows that the patterns o cooperation linked to readmissionthat Italy has developed over the last decade or so have become highly diverse. Cooperation is not only limited to the removal o unauthorized aliensrom Italy, but also includes operations aimed at expelling aliens rom theterritories o NAMCs to other Arican source countries. It also encompass-es operations aimed at pushing migrants rom international waters back toNAMCs’ territories.

In the same vein, the variety o patterns o cooperation linked to readmis-

sion is reective o the act that, or Italy, “the operability o the cooperationon readmission has been prioritized over its ormalization,” as mentioned by Jean-Pierre Cassarino in the introductory chapter. Moreover, it is perhaps orthis reason that, despite low eectiveness rates, cooperation on readmissionis and will continue to be viewed by the Italian authorities as a top priority,whether the bilateral pattern o cooperation is based on standard agreementsor not.

Finally, the study shows that the responsiveness o NAMCs to Italy’s call orenhanced cooperation in the eld o migration and border controls was notonly motivated by expected benets or compensations, but also by the actthat the bilateral interaction has been embedded in a broader ramework o interconnectedness on which some NAMCs have successully capitalized.43 Libya, as shown in the next chapter written by Emanuela Paoletti, is a casein point.

43. Jean-Pierre Cassarino, “Migration and Border Management in the Euro-Mediterra-nean Area: Heading towards New Forms o Interconnectedness,” in M.2005 M

bk (Barcelona: Institut Europeu de la Mediterrània/Centro de Etudios y Document-ación Internacional de Barcelona, 2005), pp. 227-231; Jean-Pierre Cassarino, “InormalisingReadmission Agreements in the EU Neighbourhood,” T I S , Vol. 42,No. 2 (2007), pp. 179-196; Hein De Haas, “Te Myth o Invasion: Irregular Migration romWest Arica to the Maghreb and the European Union.”




ANNEx O CAPER 2

T a b l e 1 : I t a l y – I r r e g u l a r m i g r a n t s a

p p r e h e n d e d a t I t a l i a n s e a b o r d e r s

S o u r c e : a b l e c r e a t e d

b y t h e a u t h o r b a s e d o n

d a t a f r o m t h e I t a l i a n M i n -

i s t r y o f t h e I n t e r i o r .

R e g i o n

1 9 9 8

1 9 9 9

2 0 0 0

2 0 0 1

2 0 0 2

2 0 0 3

2 0 0 4

2 0 0 5

2 0 0 6

2 0 0 7

2 0 0 8

2 0 0 9

A p u l i a

2

8 , 4 5 8

( 7 4 . 5 8 % )

4 6 , 4 8 1

( 9 2 . 9 6 % )

1 8 , 9 9 0

( 7 0 . 8 1 % )

8 , 5 4 6

( 4 2 . 4 3 % )

3 , 3 7 2

( 1 4 . 2 1 % )

1 3 7

( 0 . 9 5

% )

1 8

( 0 . 1 3 % )

1 9

( 0 . 0 8 % )

2 4 3

(

1 . 1 0 % )

6 1

( 0 . 3 0 % )

1 2 7

( 0 . 3 4 % )

N . A .

C a l a b r i a

8 7 3

( 2

. 2 9 % )

1 , 5 4 5

( 3 . 0 9 % )

5 , 0 4 5

( 1 8 . 8 1 % )

6 , 0 9 3

( 3 0 . 2 5 % )

2 , 1 2 2

( 8 . 9 5 % )

1 7

7

( 1 . 2 4

% )

2 3

( 0 . 1 7 % )

8 8

( 0 . 3 8 % )

2 8 2

(

1 . 2 8 % )

1 , 9 7 1

( 9 . 6 3 % )

6 6 3

( 1 . 7 9 % )

N . A .

S a r d i n i a

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

8

( 0 . 0 4 % )

9 1

(

0 . 4 2 % )

1 , 5 4 8

( 7 . 5 7 % )

1 , 6 2 1

( 4 . 3 9 % )

N . A .

S i c i l y

8 , 8 2 8

( 2 3 . 1 3 % )

1 , 9 7 3

( 3 . 9 5 % )

2 , 7 8 2

( 1 0 . 3 8 % )

5 , 5 0 4

( 2 7 . 3 2 % )

1 8 , 2 2 5

( 7 6 . 8 4 % )

1 4 , 0

1 7

( 9 7 . 8 1 % )

1 3 , 5 9 4

( 9 9 . 7 0 % )

2 2 , 8 2 4

( 9 9 . 5 0 % )

2 1 , 4 0 0

( 9 7 . 2 0 % )

1 6 , 8 7 5

( 8 2 . 5 0 % )

3 4 , 5 4 1

( 9 3 . 4 8 % )

N . A .

T o t a l

3

8 , 1 5 9

( 1

0 0 % )

4 9 , 9 9 9

( 1 0 0 % )

2 6 , 8 1 7

( 1 0 0 % )

2 0 , 1 4 3

( 1 0 0 % )

2 3 , 7 1 9

( 1 0 0 % )

1 4 , 3

3 1

( 1 0 0

% )

1 3 , 6 3 5

( 1 0 0 % )

2 2 , 9 3 9

( 1 0 0 % )

2 2 , 0 1 6

( 1 0 0 % )

2 0 , 4 5 5

( 1 0 0 % )

3 6 , 9 5 2

( 1 0 0 % )

9 , 5 7 3

( 1 0 0 % )




C o u n t r y

T y p e o A g r e e m e n t

P l a c e a n

d d a t e o s i g n a t u r e

A l g e r i a

P o l i c e c o o p e r a t i o n

A l g i e r s , N o v e m b e r 2 2 , 1 9 9 9

A l g e r i a

R e a d m i s s i o n

R o m e , F e b r u a r y 2 4 , 2 0 0 0

A l g e r i a

E x e c u t i v e p r o t o c o l

R o m e , O c t o b e r 9 , 2 0 0 0

A l g e r i a


A l g i e r s , J u l y 2 2 , 2 0 0 9

E g y p t


C a i r o , J u n e 1 8 , 2 0 0 0

E g y p t


R o m e , J a n u a r y 9 , 2 0 0 7

L i b y a


R o m e , D e c e m b e r 1 3 , 2 0 0 0

L i b y a


T r i p

o l i , J u l y 3 , 2 0 0 3

L i b y a


T r i p o l i ,

D e c e m b e r 2 9 , 2 0 0 7

L i b y a

F r i e n

d s h i p , p a r t n e r s h i p a n d c o o p e r a t i o n

B e n g h a z i , A u g u s t 3 0 , 2 0 0 8

L i b y a


T r i p o l

i , F e b r u a r y 4 , 2 0 0 9

M o r o c c o


R a b

a t , J u l y 2 7 , 1 9 9 8

M o r o c c o


R o m

e , J u n e 1 8 , 1 9 9 9

T u n i s i a

R e a d m i s s i o n a n d p o l i c e c o o

p e r a t i o n

R o m

e , A u g u s t 6 , 1 9 9 8

T u n i s i a


T u n i s , D e c e m b e r 1 3 , 2 0 0 3

T u n i s i a


T u n i s

, J a n u a r y 2 7 , 2 0 0 9

T a b l e 2 : I t a l y – A g r e e m e n t s l i n k e d t o r e a d m i s s i o n s i g n e d w i t h N o r t h A r i c a n c o u n t r i e s


b y t h e a u t h o r

b a s e d o n i n f o r m a t i o n

d r a w n

f r o m v a r i o u s s o u r c e s .




M o r o c c o

T u n i s i a

A l g e r i a

E g y p

t

A c t u a l l y

e x p e l l e d

A p p r e -

h e n d e d

E f e c t i v e n e s s

r a t e

A

c t u a l l y

e

x p e l l e d

A p p r e -

h e n d e d

E f e c t i v e n

e s s

r a t e

A c t u a l l y

e x p e l l e d

A p p r e -

h e n d e d

E f e

c t i v e n e s s

r a t e

A c t u a l l y

e x p e l l e d

A p p r e -

h e n d e d


r a t e

1 9 9 9

1 , 4 0 2

4 , 1 1 0

3 4 . 1 %

1 , 4 0 5

2 , 4 1 9

5 8 . 1 %

5 9 7

1 , 6 7 1

3 5 . 7 %

N . A .

N . A .

N . A .

2 0 0 0

2 , 3 7 0

7 , 1 0 9

3 3 . 3 %

1 , 3 4 5

2 , 5 8 8

5 2 . 0 %

7 5 7

2 , 3 2 8

3 2 . 5 %

N . A .

N . A .

N . A .

2 0 0 1

4 , 3 5 9

1 0 , 5 8 5

4 1 . 2 %

1 , 8 5 4

2 , 9 7 6

6 2 . 3 %

1 , 4 7 5

3 , 2 9 8

4 4 . 7 %

N . A .

N . A .

N . A .

2 0 0 2

4 , 6 6 2

1 1 , 7 5 7

3 9 . 7 %

2 , 0 2 5

3 , 8 8 8

5 2 . 1 %

1 , 4 4 8

3 , 9 9 5

3 6 . 2 %

N . A .

N . A .

N . A .

2 0 0 3

3 , 5 9 7

8 , 2 7 3

4 3 . 5 %

1 , 6 0 4

3 , 1 4 0

5 1 . 1 %

N . A .

2 , 5 6 8

N . A .

N . A .

N . A .

N . A .

2 0 0 4

2 , 8 0 9

7 , 8 3 2

3 5 . 9 %

1 , 3 5 6

2 , 8 7 1

4 7 . 2 %

N . A .

2 , 1 3 8

N . A .

5 6 2

1 , 1 6 3

4 8 . 3 %

2 0 0 5

2 , 4 2 1

9 , 3 1 7

2 6 . 0 %

9 9 1

3 , 1 9 9

3 1 . 0 %

N . A .

2 , 3 6 6

N . A .

6 7 1

2 , 3 5 5

2 8 . 5 %

2 0 0 6

1 , 8 8 7

1 4 , 0 4 7

1 3 . 4 %

6 8 8

5 , 2 0 5

1 3 . 2 %

3 2 7

2 , 3 8 2

1 3 . 7 %

N . A .

2 , 5 9 2

N . A .

T o t a l

2 3 , 5 0

7

7 3 , 0 3 0

3 2 , 2 %

1 1 , 2 6 8

2 6 , 2 8 6

4 2 . 9 %

N . A .

2 0 , 7 4 6

2 7 . 9 %

N . A .

1 0 , 2 3 0

2 6 . 5 %

T a b l e 3 : I t a l y – I r r e g u l a r m i g r a n t s a p p r e h e n d e d a n d a c t u a l l y e x p

e l l e d , 1 9 9 9 –

2 0 0 6

S o u r c e : a b l e

c r e a t e d b y t h e a u t h o r b a s e d o n

d a t a f r o m t h e I t a l i a n M i n i s t r y o f t h e I n t e r i o r .

N o t e : T i s t a b

l e d o e s n o t i n c l u d e r e f u s a l s o f e n t r y a t t h e

b o r d e r .




T a b l e 4 : I t a l y – T o t a l n u m b e r o m

i g r a n t s t o b e e x p e l l e d a n d e f e c t i v e r e m o v a l s



b a s e d o n

d a t a f r o m C a r i t a s / M i g r a n t e s

2 0

0 3

2 0 0 4

2 0 0 5

t o b e e x p e l l e d

% o e f e c t i v e

r e m o v a l s

t o b e

e x p e l l e d

% o e f e c t i v

e

r e m o v a l s

t o b e e x p e l l e d

%

o e f e c t i v e

r e m o v a l s

A l g e r i a

N . A .

N . A .

N . A .

N . A .

2 , 6 4 8

2 4 . 8 %

E g y p t

N . A .

N . A .

N . A .

N . A .

2 , 4 5 3

6 6 . 2 %

M o r o c c o

N . A .

4 5 . 9 %

N . A .

3 8 . 5 %

9 , 8 3 9

2 9 . 9 %

T u n i s i a

N . A .

5 5 . 5 %

N . A .

N . A .

3 , 7 8 2

3 3 . 8 %




2 0 0 2

2 0 0 3

D e t a i n e e s t o b e

e x p e l l e d

A c t u a l l y

e x p e l l e d

E f e c

t i v e n e s s

r a t e

D e t a i n e e s t o b e

e x p e l l e d

A c t u a l l y

e x p e l l e d


r a t e

A l g e r i a

1 , 3 6 3

1 7 9

1 3 . 1 %

7 5 3

1 4 6

1 9 . 4 %

E g y p t

N . A .

N . A .

N

. A .

N . A .

N . A .

N . A .

M o r o c c o

3 , 2 5 6

8 0 9

2 4 . 8 %

2 , 2 2 7

9 4 2

4 2 . 3 %

T u n i s i a

1 , 8 9 8

9 9 3

5 2 . 3 %

1 , 0 4 2

5 2 3

5 0 . 2 %

T a

b l e 5 : I t a l y – T o t a l n u m b e r o m i g r a n t s h e l d i n

d e t e n t i o n c e n t e r s a n d n

u m b e r o e f e c t i v e r e m o

v a l s



b a s e d o n

d a t a f r o m t h e C

o r t e d e i C o n t i



C 3

Relations among Unequals? Readmission

between Italy and Libya

Emanuela Paoletti

he literature on cooperation on readmission tends to assume thatthe agreements reached between destination and source countries are

characterized by unequal relationships, or the parties involved do not share thesame interests and implications in the cooperation.1 A large body o literaturehas argued that developing countries cannot make meaningul choicesbecause they are controlled, directly or indirectly, by external inuences.2 Tedominant perspective in the scholarly debate is that the externalization o migration policies — dened as the process whereby the place where travelersare controlled shis “rom the border o the sovereign state into which theindividual is seeking to enter to within the state o origin”3 — is based on

the subordination o the South.4 In the specic European context, somescholars have suggested that by involving migrant-sending countries in the“struggle against migration,” the EU is devolving some o its responsibilitiesto them and, by implication, moving the complex task o managing migrationoutside the rule o law.5 Te corollary o this position is that the EU migrationpolicies strengthen mainstream k accounts o power relations, or they continue to weaken the South. In this context, Keohane’s work on reciprocity and “relations among unequals” is particularly relevant or understanding

emerging relations o power between the EU and its neighboring countries.

1. Jean-Pierre Cassarino, “Inormalising Readmission Agreements in the EU Neighbor-hood,” T I S , Vol. 42 (2007), p. 182.

2. Robert L. Rothstein, T Wk W S (New York: Columbia Univer-sity Press, 1977), p. 9.

3. Elspeth Guild, “Te Borders o the European Union,” k Pk, Vol. 7 (2004),p. 34.

4. Chris Brown, U I R (Basigstoke: Palgrave, 2001).5. Elspeth Guild and Didier Bigo, “Le visa Schengen: expression d’une stratégie de ‘police’à distance” [“Te Schengen Visa: An Expression o a Police Strategy at a Distance”], C C, Vol. 49 (2003); Andrew Geddes, “Europe’s Border Relationships and Interna-tional Migration Relations,” JCMS, Vol. 43 (2005).




Within this overall trend, the non-standard agreements linked to readmissionbetween Italy and Libya are insightul. Since it is a pioneering and relatively advanced example o cooperation in the European context, the issueo whether it is based on unequal reciprocity appears to be particularly

pertinent. Tereore, the question that I shall address in this chapter iswhether the Italian-Libyan agreements linked to readmission can be treatedas an example o relations among unequals. In other words, does the selectedcase study reect what Keohane calls “reciprocity in unequal obligations”?

Tis chapter is divided into our sections. First, I illustrate Keohane’s argumentand dene the relevant terminology. Second, I present a brie historicalexcursus o the Italian-Libyan agreements in order to set the scene or thethird section, which is concerned with the types o agreements as such. In

providing an historical overview o the “return ights” between October2004 and March 2006, I will also elaborate on the criticisms that were leveledby a number o dierent international organizations against Italy and Libya.6 Te ourth section applies the concepts o reciprocity and relations amongunequals, to the empirical analysis. By ocusing on the costs and benetsin the Italian-Libyan patterns o cooperation on readmission in widernegotiations on migration, I analyze the overall bargaining dynamics andexplore the extent to which there are power disparities. In the nal section I

conclude that the agreements epitomize a relation among unequals or Italy has higher obligations and costs than Libya. I will also argue, however, that thisunbalance is recast in the bilateral agreements on migration that arebest dened by Keohane’s notion o “diuse” yet still unequal reciprocity.7

Beore embarking on these tasks, it is important to stress the limitationso this chapter. First, I take great liberty in applying Keohane’s concept o reciprocity to a bilateral agreement. His analysis concentrates on multilateralrameworks. However, I have taken the view that utilizing the concept o

reciprocity in this case study may help us appreciate the multiaceted natureo state interactions in relation to evolving migration dynamics. Second, inthis chapter I reer to the Italian-Libyan non-standard agreements as the sumo the discussions on repatriation ights rom Italy to Libya. Tisutilization transcends the standard meaning, or it does not imply that Italy and Libya have ormally signed a standard readmission agreement in the

6. Te analysis is based on ocial documents and semi-structured interviews conductedin Italy and Libya between 2006 and 2008. All the interviews are kept anonymous and theorganizations where interviewees are based will not be disclosed.

7. Robert O. Keohane, “Reciprocity in International Relations,” I Oz, Vol. 40 (1986), pp. 1-27.




manner that other European and non-European countries have done withmigrant-sending countries. Tird, the empirical analysis centers on charterights. Tese took place between 2004 and 2006 and were aimed at removingunauthorized aliens. In the conclusion I will link such agreements to the

development in the collaborative arrangements in 2009.

APPROACING RECIPROCIIES

Keohane identies two interrelated types o reciprocity:

I … use f reciprocity … to reer to situations in which speciedpartners exchange items o equivalent value in a strictly delimited se-quence. I any obligations exist, they are clearly specied in terms o rights and duties o particular actors. Tis is the typical meaning o reci-procity in economics and game theory. In situations characterized by reciprocity, by contrast, the denition o equivalence is less precise,one’s partners may be viewed as a group rather than as particular actors,and the sequence o events is less narrowly bounded. Obligations areimportant. Diuse reciprocity involves conorming to generally acceptedstandards o behavior.8

Put another way, while the rst type reers to the interaction on one specicissue, the second reers to the ongoing discussion across a range o dierentissues or the sake o continuing satisactory overall results. Depending onthe extent to which exchange is equivalent, it is possible to identiy threekinds o reciprocity. For purposes o clarity, I distinguish them in theollowing manner: (1) ull reciprocity, (2) unequal reciprocity, and (3) non-reciprocity.9 As concerns the rst one, international relations literature haselaborated extensively on reciprocity and, more oen than not, has denedit as an equivalent exchange. In quoting Gouldner, Keohane makes clear that“reciprocal behavior returns ill or ill as well as good or good: ‘people shouldmeet smiles with smiles and lies with treachery.’”10 However, he also observesthat reciprocity applies to situations o “rough equivalence”:

Reciprocity can also characterize relations among unequals, or instance,

8. Keohane, “Reciprocity in International Relations,” p. 3.9. I elaborated this three-old categorization based on, but not strictly ollowing, Keo-

hane’s work. Hence, responsibility or this clear-cut dierentiation remains with the author.10. Keohane, “Reciprocity in International Relations,” p. 5.




between a patron and his client, when there is little prospect o equiva-lent exchange. Patron-client relationships are characterized by exchangeso mutually valued but non-comparable goods and services.11

Tis second type o interaction reers to “reciprocity in unequal obligations”that is the “really distinctive eature o European vassalage”.12 By contrast,“when we observe one-sided and unrequited exploitation, which cannotunder any circumstances be considered an exchange o equivalents, we donot describe the relationship as reciprocal”.13 Situations that lack a “roughbalancing out” cannot be considered reciprocal and are dened in thischapter as non-reciprocal.

o assess the extent to which relations are based on reciprocity, Keohaneexamines obligations involving the duties o both parties. In a reciprocalinteraction, “people should help those who have helped them, and peopleshould not injure those who have helped them.” Tese norms “imposeobligations.”14 Obligations are important since they are indicators o the extentto which there is conormity to generally accepted standards o behavior.15

Te next section examines the nature o reciprocity in the Italian-Libyanbilateral agreements linked to readmission and wider negotiations on

migration by assessing the obligations o each party. Which o the threescenarios explained above best capture their interaction: ull reciprocity,unequal reciprocity, or non-reciprocity?

BACKGROUND O E AGREEMENS ON MIGRAION BEWEEN IAL AND LIBA

Te discussions between Italy and Libya on migration controls started in thelate 1990s. On July 4, 1998, a “Joint Communiqué” was signed. Te signicanceo this agreement derives rom Italy’s ormal acknowledgment o the sueringcaused during the colonial period. In the period ollowing the signing o the agreement, a number o meetings between Italian and Libyan authoritieson migration-related issues, among other things, took place. Tis intensediscussion led to the signing o the Memorandum o Intent in December2000, which addressed drug-tracking, terrorism, organized crime, and

11. Keohane, “Reciprocity in International Relations,” p. 6.12. Keohane, “Reciprocity in International Relations,” p. 6.13. Keohane, “Reciprocity in International Relations,” p. 6.14. Keohane, “Reciprocity in International Relations,” p. 21.15. Keohane, “Reciprocity in International Relations,” p. 21.




illegal migration. Te agreement became eective aer its ratication in theItalian Parliament on December 22, 2002.16

Between 2000 and December 2007, no ormal agreements on migrationwere signed between the two countries. Nevertheless, the discussions on

migration continued, and a set o concrete actions were implemented. O particular relevance are the measures inormally agreed, in ripoli on July 3,2003. Reportedly, the Italian Minister o the Interior and the Libyan JusticeMinister, Mohammad Mosrati, reached an agreement involving, among otherthings, the exchange o inormation on migrant ows and the provision toLibya o specic equipment to control sea and land borders.17 wo morerecent agreements also deserve mention. On December 28, 2007, the twocountries signed an agreement on the joint patrolling o coasts, ports, and

bays in northern Libya to prevent people-smuggling.18

On August 30, 2008,in a tent in Benghazi, Silvio Berlusconi and the Libyan leader ColonelMuammar Al Qadha signed an historic agreement, according to whichItaly will pay $5 billion over the next 20 years, nominally to compensateLibya or the “deep wounds” o the colonial past.19 Te agreement was theculmination o a tortuous ten-year long history o diplomatic exchanges,which included a number o ormal and inormal cooperative arrangementson a variety o issues, such as migration, culture, colonial issues, and joint-

business ventures.Overall, even though neither the Italian nor the Libyan government hasdisclosed detailed inormation on the measures agreed and implemented, itis possible to identiy the main joint measures implemented so ar:

Reception centers unded by Italy in Libya1. : Italy has nanced theconstruction o camps intended to host migrants. On this issue, astatement by Undersecretary o the Interior, Marcella Lucidi, in July 2007 revealed that one center in Gharyan had already been handed

16. Bilateral Agreement on Counterterrorism, Organized Crime, and Illegal Immigration(December 2000).

17. House o Representatives, Seat No. 329, June 25, 2003, Hearing by Giuseppe Pisanu,Minister o Interior, http://legxiv.camera.it/organiparlamentari/assemblea/contenitore_dati.asp?tipopagina=&source=&position=&Pagina=/_dati/leg14/lavori/stenograci/sed329/s060.htm.

18. Ministry o Interior, “Te Libya-Italy Agreement on Patrol on December 29,

2007,” http://www.interno.it/mininterno/export/sites/deault/it/sezioni/sala_stampa/comunicati/0866_2007_12_29_I_contenuti_dellxaccordo_con_la_Libia.html_8783098.html.

19. Claudia Gazzini, “Assessing Italy’s Grande Gesto to Libya,” M E R O (2009), http://www.merip.org/mero/mero031609.html.




over to the Libyan authorities or police training purposes. Te secondcenter in Kura was in the process o being built and was intended toprovide health support to migrants. Lucidi also made clear that noother centers were to be built.20 Importantly, during interviews with

Libyan and Italian ocials in ripoli between 2007 and 2008, I wastold that the centers were no longer intended or conning “illegal”oreigners, but rather or police training and providing humanitarianassistance;

Repatriations rom Italy 2. : As I will illustrate in detail, Italy nancedthe removal o over 3,000 migrants to Libya between October 2004and March 2006;

Repatriations rom Libya3. : Italy has been nancing ights to repatriate

unauthorized migrants rom Libya to third countries.21 It is uncertainwhether this practice is still in orce;

Coordinated Patrol Systems4. : Italy has repeatedly asked Libya toparticipate in joint patrols in the Mediterranean. Libya had rerainedrom taking part22 until May 2009 when joint patrols resumed;23

Provision o Equipment5. : the non-standard bilateral agreement signedin July 2003 included, , assistance to strengthen the Libyan

authorities’ ability to patrol land and sea borders. For example, onMay 2005, the Italian Ministry o the Interior agreed to spend €15million over three years to equip the Libyan police with the necessary means to combat irregular migration;24

raining program6. : the Italian-Libyan agreements signed in 2000mentioned the cooperative arrangements to train police ocers.Since then, the Italian government has co-unded and managed a

20. Chamber o Deputies Meeting o July 5, 2007, Response o the Secretary MarcellaLucidi urgent interpellation No. 2-00623, June 26, 2007, http://leg15.camera.it/resoconti/dettaglio_resoconto.asp?idSeduta=0184&resoconto=stenograco&indice=alabetico&tit=00090&ase=00060

21. Human Rights Watch, “Stemming the Flow: Abuses Against Migrants, Asylum Seekersand Reugees,” Volume 18, No. 5(E) (2006), http://www.hrw.org/reports/2006/libya0906/.

22. Ferruccio Pastore, ILb R M — w G O TI (Rome: CESPI, 2008).

23. Senate, 214th Assembly seat — verbatim May 25, 2009, p. 4, http://www.senato.it/service/PDF/PDFServer/BG/424000.pd 24. “L’ira di Ghedda con Berlusconi: ‘ratto solo con Pisanu’” [“Gadda’s Wrath with

Berlusconi ‘Section Only Pisanu”], I C S, May 27, 2005, http://www.corriere.it/Primo_Piano/Esteri/2005/05_Maggio/26/ghedda.shtml.




range o training courses or Libyan police sta;25

Exchange o intelligence inormation7. : a critical aspect o the bilateralcollaboration ocuses on the exchange o inormation on smugglingorganizations. For this purpose, a representative o the Italian Ministry

o the Interior is based in ripoli and a liaison ocer rom the LibyanMinistry o the Interior is likewise located in Rome26;

Push-backs8. : According to the available records, this measure was rstimplemented between May 6−10, 2009 when 471 migrants interceptedon international waters were shipped to Libya by Italian police.27 OnJuly 1, 2009, 89 other oreign nationals were “pushed back” to Libya.28 Importantly, this measure is not to be conused with joint patrollingsince it does not appear that Libyan ocials were aboard the vessels;

Cooperation with the International Organization or Migration9.(IOM): Te IOM has implemented projects on migration co-undedby the Italian government. In particular, as part o the project “AcrossSahara”, the IOM has collaborated with the Italian scientic police toorganize activities such as workshops or police sta rom Libya andNiger.29

In keeping with the aim o this chapter, I now turn to a detailed analysis o

the non-standard agreements.

AGREEMENS LINKED O READMISSION

Te practice o readmitting unauthorized migrants to their alleged countrieso origin has been widely employed by Italy as well as other European andnon European countries.30 o date, Italy has signed readmission agreements

25. European Commission, M Lb I M 27 N 6 −D2004 R , 7753/05 (Brussels: European Commission, 2005), http://www.statewatch.org/news/2005/may/eu-report-libya-ill-imm.pd .

26. Emanuela Paoletti, “Agreements between Italy and Libya on Migration” in A. Phillipsand R. Ratclie, eds., 1,001 L: B B Nw M E S (Cambridge:Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009).

27. Senate, 214th Assembly seat - verbatim May 25, 2009.28. Fortress Europe, “Respinti in Libia altri 89 migranti. Erano a 25 miglia da Lampe-

dusa” [“Libya rejected 89 other migrants. Tey were 25 miles rom Lampedusa.”], http://ortresseurope.blogspot.com/2006/01/respinti-in-libia-altri-89-migranti.html.29. Ministry o the Interior, “59 Report on Inormation Policy and Security - 1st semester

2007.”30. Statewatch, Readmission agreements and EC external migration law, No. 17 (2003),




with over twenty countries, including Albania, Algeria, Croatia, Georgia,Morocco, Moldavia, Nigeria, Serbia, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, unisia, Cyprus,Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovenia, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania.31

Repatriations represent a critical aspect o the Italian-Libyan collaboration

on migration. Between October 2004 and March 2006, Italy organized charterights rom Sicily to Libya, transporting migrants who had recently arrived inItaly rom the North Arican country. For our purposes, a historical excursuso these measures is instructive.32

From September 29 to October 3, 2004, 1,728 undocumented migrantsreached the island o Lampedusa on 20 vessels that were sighted and rescuedby the Italian police orces. On October 1, the Italian authorities ordered theremoval o 90 oreigners rom Lampedusa to Libya. Te ollowing day, three

ights brought over 300 migrants and asylum-seekers to ripoli. On October3, two special Alitalia ights and two military planes deported another 400people, and our days later, military planes removed still more.33 As the ItalianGovernment stated in its response to the appeal beore the European Courtor Human Rights, between September and October 2004, “1,153 oreignnationals — most o them o Egyptian nationality — were removed to Libyaon 11 charter ights”.34 Beore the C R M (i.e., ItalianMinisterial ribunal), Alessandro Pansa added that the ights were directed

to Albeida Airport in Libya so that the migrants could be transerred toEgypt.35

A ew months later, a second wave o repatriations took place. On December20, 2004, an Italian police press release reported that 200 unwanted Egyptian

http://www.statewatch.org/news/2003/may/12readmission.htm.31. Caritas, S — S D I, XVI Report (Rome: Idos,

2006).32. It is important to bear in mind, however, that this summary o the return ight prac-

tices which ollows is by no means complete. Further, since it is based on a variety o sourceso inormation, there may be some errors with regard to the numbers o oreign nationalsremoved to Libya. Hence, the gures I present have to be treated with caution. Tis sketchy picture may still provide an overall account o the dierent phases o the practice o orga-nizing return ights. No other public source has documented it in its entirety. o be sure,Human Rights Watch (2006) does list the main repatriations conducted by Libya yet it hassome gaps. For example, it does not mention the return ights in March 2006.

33. Human Rights Watch, S Fw: Ab A M, A Sk

R (2006), p. 113.34. Ministry o the Interior, “Immigrants: Tere Have Been No Mass Return, No One”(2004).

35. College or Ministerial Oences, “Report o Obtaining Inormation - Interrogation o Alessandro Pansa”(2006).




migrants coming rom Libya had boarded a plane at Crotone Airport toripoli. According to the same source, these measures exemplied “thepositive collaboration with Libyan authorities”.36

A third series o repatriations was undertaken in March 2005. Between

March 13−21, 1,235 migrants arrived in Lampedusa. O them, 421 requestedprotection and were transerred to Crotone. Another 494 were expelled toLibya and 126 to Egypt.37

As the then-Italian Minister o the Interior Giuseppe Pisanu commented:

Once again, we are acing an attack conducted by criminal organizationsthat unremittingly exploits illegal migrants … We will respond, as always,in a rm manner. We will provide the necessary assistance and necessary medical treatment and we will take back to the country o origin thosethat are not entitled to stay in Italy. Te individual measures o repatria-tions are carried out in respect o national and international rules.38

Similarly, in April 2005, the Undersecretary at the Ministry o the Interior,Michele Saponara, claimed that the above-mentioned return ights tookplace with the consent o Libya and with respect or human rights laws as

well as existing international laws.39

In October 2004 and March 2006, two Italian parliamentarians happened tobe in the reception center at Lampedusa while the migrants were repatriated.One o the two provides an insightul account o their experience:

While we were in the center o Lampedusa, rom some documents thatwe saw we realized that these people were collectively repatriated underthe same name. We saw long lists repeating the same name. Hence, webelieve that they were not properly identied. Moreover, these peoplewere not given the possibility to apply or asylum … We raised this is-sue during a parliamentary interrogation, asking the Government howit could send back to Libya people that had not been identied. Te re-sponse was that those people had been identied. Yet, when we asked

36. State Police, “Te State Police Repatriates about 200 Illegal Immigrants” (2004), http://www.poliziadistato.it/pds/online/comunicati/index.php?id=622.

37. College or Ministerial Oences (2006).38. “Immigration: Pisanu, Firmly Against Yet Another Assault on the Coast,” A, March13, 2005.

39. Senate o the Republic, 776th Public Session, Report Summary and shorthand (2005),http://www.tanadezulueta.it/html/modules/wsection/article.php?page=1&articleid=52.




i we could have the lists [with the names o those repatriated provingthat they had been identied], we were told that or privacy reasons thisrequest could not be met.40

Te ormal position o the Italian Ministry o Interior remains that the peopleremoved to Libya had been individually identied.41

On May 12, 2005, over 800 people arrived at Lampedusa42, and two days later,an Alitalia ight carried 67 people rom Lampedusa to Albeida in westernLibya.43 Signicantly, on May 10 the Tird Section o the European Court o Human Rights requested the Italian Government not to expel 11 immigrantswho had appealed to the Court.44 (Te international pressure on Italy to haltthe repatriations shall be explored urther below).

A h series o return ights rom Sicily took place between June andJuly 2005. On June 22, the Italian authorities removed at least 45 people toLibya.45 Other sources report that on July 13, 64 Egyptians were transerredto Libya.46

Other ights rom Italy to Libya were arranged in August 2005. On August 10,2005, 65 migrants were put on an Alitalia ight to Libya.47 Between August 21-27, 130 Egyptians arrived at Lampedusa and were transported rst to Porto

Empedocle and then to Catania Airport to be put on two military ights to Libya.48 On August 31, another 165 Egyptians were taken rom Lampedusa to Libya.49

40. Interview by author with Italian parliamentarian, Rome, July 2006.41. Senate o the Republic (2005); Chamber o Deputies, report o the meeting o the Assem-

bly, Seat No. 703 (2005), http://legxiv.camera.it/chiosco.asp?source=&position=Organi%20Parlamentari\L’Assemblea\Resoconti%20dell’Assemblea&content=/_dati/leg14/lavori/stenograci/ramedinam.asp?sedpag=sed703/s000r.htm.

42. “Immigration: Stowaways ry to Flee Even to Lampedusa,” A, May 12, 2005.43. Human Rights Watch, S Fw: Ab A M, A Sk

R (2006), p. 110; “Immigration: De Zulueta Resumed Deportations rom Lampe-dusa, Berlusconi Government Practice Illegal Expulsions,” A, May 20, 2005.

44. European Court o Human Rights, I M I EU Mb S w Lb (2005), http://www.dh.org/article.php3?id_arti-cle=2419.

45. Human Rights Watch, S Fw: Ab A M, A Sk R (2006), p. 110.

46. “In 2005 More than Four Returns with the Charter,” I M, August 11, 2005,

http://www.meltingpot.org/articolo5826.html.47. I M (2005); “Lampedusa Watching,” A (2005), http://www.tesseramento.it/immigrazione/documenti/index.php.

48. “Immigration: CRP, Continued Deportations to Libya,” A, August 30, 2005.49. A, August 30, 2005.




Overall, Libyan authorities indicate that in 2005 the number o oreignersremoved rom Italy to Libya totaled 1,876.50 A similar gure was conrmedby the European Committee or the Prevention o orture. It documentsthat, in 2005, 21 ights were organized to remove 1,642 oreign nationals

rom Lampedusa to Libya and 221 rom Crotone.

51

A report it published in2007 claries that in 2006 only one repatriation ight took place.52 In act, onMarch 28, 14 people were removed to Libya.53

Dierent sources document that most o the oreigners removed to Libyawere repatriated directly to third countries. A report by the EuropeanParliament (EP) cites Libyan authorities saying “that the hundreds o illegalsub-Saharan migrants sent back to ripoli by the Italian authorities in 2004and 2005 have, in most cases, been repatriated to their countries o origin.”54 Similarly, Human Rights Watch reports:


51. European Committee or the Prevention o orture, Report to the Government o Italy or the visit to Italy by the European Committee or the Prevention o orture and In-human or Degrading reatment or Punishment (2005), http://www.cpt.coe.int/documents/ita/2007-26-in-ra.htm.

52. “Immigration: From Lampedusa Repatriated Only 20 Egyptians,” A, March 28,

2006.53. European Committee or the Prevention o orture (2007), p. 31.54. European Parliament Delegation to Libya (2005), http://www.europarl.europa.eu/

news/expert/inopress_page/029-3243-339-12-49-903-20051206IPR03242-05-12-2005-2005-alse/deault_de.htm.

2004 2005 2006 Total

1,153 1,876 14 3,043

Table 1: Number o oreign nationals removed rom Italy to Libya

N: T b k k b . T b b . M f, f 2004 w I G E C R Ob 2004. T 2005 w b Lb G R W (2006).F 2006 E C P (2007).




Te quickest returns are o persons sent back rom Italy because theLibyan and Italian governments have arranged their onward removal tocountries o origin prior to their arrival. “Tis is arranged beore they come [ I] so we do not hold them” said Hadi Khamis the direc-tor o Libya’s deportation camps. He explained: “Tey are not held in

al-Fellah but sent right home.”55

Since March 2006, no urther repatriations to Libya have been reported.However, ocial statements rom the Italian Ministry o the Interiorare ambiguous on this matter. Interestingly, in May 2006 during a visit toLampedusa, the Undersecretary o the Interior, Marcella Lucidi, declaredthat there would “no longer be expulsions o immigrants to those countries

that have not signed the Geneva Convention, and among them, Libya.”56

Yet,shortly aer this statement the Undersecretary was reported clariying thatthe “expulsions” to ripoli would “not be indiscriminate.”57 Nonetheless, thereis no evidence that expulsions rom Italy to Libya continued aer March2006.

Notably, the return ights described above have been condemned widely. Italy has been criticized by the Council o Europe’s Committee or the Prevention o orture, Amnesty International (AI), the UNHCR, the European Parliament

and a group o Italian and Spanish NGOs. Italy has also been asked to justiy the expulsions beore the European Court or Human Rights and the ItalianMinisterial ribunal. Among the criticisms leveled, the most relevant ones orour purposes concern 1) the absence o a standard readmission agreementbetween Italy and Libya and 2) the Italian legal basis or conducting returnights. I now consider the responses provided by the Italian government onthese matters and the institutional constraints Italy had to ace.

Dierent positions have been taken by Italy as to the existence o thereadmission agreements with Libya. An Italian ocial in ripoli maintained


56. “Minister o Social Aairs in Lampedusa. Polished, not give back the illegal immi-grants who violate the Geneva Convention,” La Repubblica, May 25, 2006, http://www.arti-colo21.ino/notizia.php?id=3633.

57. “I P L. L, I: z G” [Visit o the Minister o Welare to Lampedusa:Undersecretary Lucidi at the Ministry o the Interior declares: We will not return illegal mi-grants to countries that violate the Geneva Convention] L Rbb, May 25, 2006, http://www.articolo21.ino/notizia.php?id=3633.




that there are no readmission agreements between the two countries.58 By contrast, a senior ocial at the Italian Ministry o Foreign Aairs that wasinvolved in the negotiations o the Joint Communiqué in 1998 and o theMemorandum o Understanding in 2000 claimed that an Italian-Libyan

readmission agreement had been agreed upon. During an interview, whenI argued that no ormal agreements on this matter have ever been discussedin the Italian Parliament, he responded that verbal agreements hold juridical value.59

Te statements o the Italian Minister o the Interior show that the twocountries agreed to undertake repatriations rom Italy to Libyaand rom Libya to other countries. On September 17, , 2004, Pisanu praisedthe agreements with Libya or succeeding in repatriating such a signicant

number o oreign nationals60

and on September 27, 2004 he conrmed thatLibya had already accepted the repatriation o 800 immigrants.61 Moreover,on October 8, 2004 the Italian Minister o Interior reiterated beore theChamber o Deputies that:

Te removals to Libya have been carried out on the basis o the agree-ments with the Libyan Government and they reect the agreements al-ready nalized with many third countries rom the southern shore o

the Mediterranean. However, the bilateral agreements between Italy andLibya cover neither the treatment o the oreigners expelled rom Italy nor the modality o their expulsion to the country o origin. Te agree-ments […] concern the ght against illegal migration and human smug-gling, as well as the provision o [technical] equipment and cooperationaimed at saving lives during the Mediterranean crossing.62

Te same point was endorsed by other governmental ocials. On October14, 2004, appearing beore the Senate, the ormer Undersecretary o theInterior, Alredo Mantovano, made it clear that the expulsions to Libya were

58. Interview with an Italian government ocial in January 2007, ripoli, Libya.59. Interview with an Italian government ocial, February 8, 2007, Rome, Italy.60. “Immigration: Pisanu, We are Working on Removing Embargoes Libya,” A, Sep-

tember 17, 2004.61. Ministry o Internal Aairs, “Press Conerence by Minister o the Interior Pisanu on

alks with Colonel Qadha,” Press Release (2004), http://www.interno.it/salastampa/discor-si/elenchi/articolo.php?idIntervento=294.62. Ministry o Internal Aairs, “ I: N è

, ,” October 8, 2004, http://www.interno.it/salastampa/discorsi/elenchi/artico-lo.php?idIntervento=295.




envisioned in the agreements with Libya.63 During an interview with a highranking ocial at the Italian Ministry o the Interior explained the reasonsor their inormality.

We had to address the issue o people dying o-shore […] I one o ourpartners, and I don’t necessarily want to say Libya, or its own reasons,is willing to have an agreement only i its items remain secret or a cer-tain period o time, I much preer to have this agreement, even i it isinormal, instead o nothing at all. Tis is particularly the case when thiscould help save human lives and prevent unbalanced situations betweencountries o origin and o destination.64

Likewise, in a letter to Human Rights Watch, Giuseppe Panocchia, the ItalianForeign Ministry’s representative, attested that the removals to Libya “arebased on inormal agreements developed in the course o diverse bilateralmeetings at ministerial level.”65 Further, beore the Ministerial ribunal,Carlo Mosca stated that ights to Libya and the subsequent repatriationsto Egypt took place with the consent o Libya but “in the absence o readmission agreements.”66 Tis position is consistent with the response o theItalian government to the European Court o Human Rights, which claims

that “there is no agreement with Libya on readmission o illegal migrants.” 67

Tis leads to the second issue, concerning the admissibility o the return ightsrom the viewpoint o Italian legislation. Te Italian government argued thatthe repatriations were lawul measures. In the ormal response to the appealbeore the European Court o Human Rights on the repatriations whichoccurred rom September 29 to October 6, 2004, the Italian governmentclaried its position with regard to the principle and thenature o the cooperation with Libya. It argued that the return ights to

Libya all under the denition o “”68 and is to be conused

63. Senate o the Republic, 675th Session Public Report, Summary and Shorthand (2004),http://www.senato.it/service/PDF/PDFServer/BG/119523.

64. Interview by author with Italian government ocial, Rome, February 2007.65. Human Rights Watch, S Fw: Ab A M, A Sk

R (2006), p. 106.66. Interrogation to Carlo Mosca beore the Ministerial ribunal. Te text was provided

by an Italian lawyer.67. European Court o Human Rights, Tird Section, Decision on the Admissibility […] (2006), http://docenti.unimc.it/docenti/rancesca-de-vittor/diritto-dellimmigrazione/giurisprudenza/cour-europeenne-des-droits-de-lhomme-aaire-1.

68. Te word literally means “repulsing.”




neither with “ ” nor with “expulsion.” “R” is denedin Articles 10 and 13 o the Unied ext on Immigration as a situation inwhich “the border police sends back oreigners crossing the borders withoutthe necessary requirements or entry into the State’s territory as provided or

in the Unied ext.” Simply put, the Italian government rejected the chargeo breaking the principle by arguing that it had applied theprinciple o “.”

However, a number o observers have questioned the legality o suchmeasures on human rights grounds. For instance, the UNHCR repeatedly lamented the act that the Italian government did not take the necessary precautions to ensure that it was not sending back any b f reugees toLibya, which was not considered a sae country o asylum at the time.69 Te

same organization also expressed deep regret “or the lack o transparency on the part o both the Italian and Libyan authorities.”70 Likewise, Amnesty International expressed concern “that these people might be returnedwithout an eective opportunity to apply or asylum.71 On the basis o theinormation available, the Italian government has never provided a list o thepeople repatriated rom Lampedusa.72

In sum, the lack o clarity on the issue o the legality o the return ightsrom Italy to Libya and their sudden interruption in March 2006, despite the

continuation o undocumented arrivals to Italy rom Libya, demonstratesItaly’s ambiguous legal stance.73 Correspondingly, the acceptance by Libyanauthorities o the repatriations rom Italy invites reection on their positiontowards migration.

COS-BENEFI ANALSIS

In order to unpack the give-and-take ramework, and assess whether theItalian-Libyan interaction constitutes relations among unequals, I now moveon to study the costs incurred and benets accrued74 by both countries as part

69. UNHCR, “Italy: UNHCR Deeply Concerned About Lampedusa Deportations o Lib-yans (2005), http://www.unhcr.org/news/NEWS/423ab71a4.html.

70. UNHCR, “Italy: UNHCR Deeply Concerned about Lampedusa Deportations o Liby-ans,” March 18, 2005, http://www.unhcr.org/news/NEWS/423ab71a4.html.

71. Amnesty International, “Immigration Cooperation with Libya: the Human rights Per-spective,” AI brieng ahead o the JHA Council, April 14, 2005, http://www.amnesty-eu.org/

static/documents/2005/JHA_Libya_april12.pd.72. Interview with an Italian parliamentarian February 8, 2007, Rome, Italy.73. Chiara Favilli, “What Ways o Concluding International Agreements on Immigra-

tion?” J I Lw, Vol. 88 (2005).74. Te literature on cost-benet analysis is vast. However, or the purposes o consis-




o the wider agreements on migration.75 By locating the agreements linked toreadmission within patterns o diuse reciprocity, I analyze how participantscalculate benets and costs o acting in accordance with, or against, commonnorms.76 Te analytical tools provided by Keohane illustrated above help

answer one o the initial questions on the patterns o reciprocity between thetwo countries.

tency I ocus on selected works rom the regime literature Krasner (1995).75. Ernst Haas, “Words Can Hurt You; or, Who Said What to Whom About Regimes,” in

Stephen Krasner, ed., I R (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995), pp. 23-59.76. Donald Puchala and Raymond Hopkins, “International Regimes: Lessons rom In-

ductive Analysis,” in Stephen Krasner, ed., I R (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995), p. 90.

Costs Benefts

Italy

Faltering Libyan-

commitment;

Financial resources-invested with limitedremovals;Reputational cost-

resulting rom theinormality o theagreements.

Formal support o -

Libya to collaborate onmigration.

Libya

o a limited extent,-

the inormality o theagreements or credibility with the alleged humanrights violations.

Financial and material-

resources receivedrom Italy;Italian inclination to-

talk “at any cost”;Reputational gain:-

Privileged position inthe discussion with theEU and Italy.

Table 2: Cost-benefts analysis o agreements linked to readmission

N: T b bf b k b bwLb I.




In agreeing to conclude such agreements, Libya reinorced its internationalstanding. Its willingness to collaborate with the Italian government onmigration issues was partly responsible or the reintegration o Libya into theinternational community. Aer decades o political insularity, such bilateral

cooperation allowed Libya to portray itsel as being at the oreront in the ghtagainst irregular migration and international terrorism. o rephrase Lipson,complying with Italy’s request provided Libya with a “reputational” gain.77 Te bilateral collaboration with Italy oered Libya “the opportunity to beseen to be cooperating in combating the smuggling o persons” and enhancedLibya’s reputation as a responsible state.78 Not surprisingly, the onset o therepatriations coincided with the liing o the European embargo on Libyaand the inauguration o a gas pipeline to Italy (see Paolo Cuttitta’s chapter).Arguably, Italy’s critical contribution to normalizing Libya’s relations withthe EU was rewarded with the Libyan concession o repatriating migrantswho had just arrived in Sicily.

Libya’s ormal support or Italian initiatives to combat undocumentedmigration represents a time-specic benet with limited resource costsgiven that the ights were unded by the Italian government. Te limitedcost derives, also, rom a distinctive aspect o the repatriations. Te migrantsrepatriated were not Libyan nationals.79 Teir ights simply transited through

Libyan airports and rom there they were directed to third countries. Inother words, as the ights were sponsored by the Italian government andwere not ultimately repatriating Libyan nationals, Libya had virtually noobligations. At the same time, it enjoyed signicant rewards, specically by repairing o its pariah image. In the light o the substantive Libyan interestin ull rehabilitation within the international community, the benets o compliance with the Italian requests on the return ights were higher thanthose posed by deance.

More substantially, the centrality o migration in the bilateral discussionhas urnished the northern-Arican country with satisactory results in itsoverall interaction with Italy. Italy will talk at “any cost.” Tis is due, in part,to the internal political and public pressure to address the alleged crisis o

77. Charles Lipson, “Why Are Some International Agreements Inormal?” I Oz, Vol. 45 (1991), p. 510.

78. Jean-Pierre Cassarino, “Inormalising Readmission Agreements in the EU Neigh-

bourhood,” p. 183; Salvatore Colucello and Simon Massey, “Out o Arica: Te Human radebetween Libya and Lampedusa,” Oz C, Vol. 10 (2007), p. 83.79. European Commission Report 7753/05, “echnical Mission to Libya on Illegal Mi-

gration 27 Nov – 6 Dec 2004 Report,”http://www.statewatch.org/news/2005/may/eu-report-libya-ill-imm.pd.






On the one hand, despite the persisting criticism illustrated above, theinternational community has increasingly sought to strengthen its ties withthe Colonel. Te meeting between then-US Secretary o State CondoleezzaRice and the Libyan Foreign Minister in Washington in January 2008 was

not conditioned on the improvements in human rights.

83

In short, Libya’scollaboration with Italy on the removal o undocumented migrants has notpresented a signicant obstacle to the pursuit o its interests.

On the other hand, however, international pressure has not encouraged Libyato change its policies. In act, the number o migrants removed rom Libyato third countries has increased over the recent years.84 In pursuing andpublicizing such actions, the Libyan regime has sought to convince Europeo its commitment to tackling migration and to raise concern over the ar-

reaching social, economic, and political problems that immigration poses toLibya.

Hence, in employing Keohane’s terminology as dened at the beginningo this chapter, it appears that rom the Libyan perspective the agreementslinked to readmission and the wider negotiations on migration with Italy have involved limited obligation. Furthermore, they did not expose Libyato the threat o exploitation by Italy. Libyan compliance with the short-livedItalian requests to support repatriations has led to a positive pay-o in which

the benets outweighed the costs.

Let me now turn to Italy’s cost-benet analysis. One o Italy’s major gainsrom the agreements is Libyan consent to collaborate on migration. Yet,this collaboration is more ormal than . Te inability o the Italiangovernment to reduce signicantly unwanted migration rom Libya and toconvince the Libyan regime to ully respond to Italian requests sheds light onresilient constraints. Te piecemeal willingness o Libya to uphold the bilateralcollaboration on migration makes Italy dependent on its counterpart or thesuccessul implementation o the cooperative arrangements. Te non-unitary nature o the Libyan regime, and its multiple identities and interests epitomizedby the double agenda illustrated above, impose signicant limitations on Italy.Arguably, Libya’s lack o sustained willingness to comply may be linked withLibyan police corruption. Te recent report by Frontex (2007) observes thatcorruption may play an important role in the migratory situation in Libya.

83 Human Rights Watch, “Human Rights in Libya,” Nw S, January 14, 2008,http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/01/14/libya17732.htm.84 Libyan Ministry o Interior, Collaboration on Security between Libya and Italy

(2007); Libyan Ministry o Interior, Chart on the Deportation between 2000 and 2005(2007).




As evident as it may seem, no matter what sophisticated equipment oradvanced border management concept and system might be put in place,the existence o corruption will always undermine the implementationo an eective border guard response.85

Other commentators have argued that unwanted migration to and throughLibya is not only tolerated but actually encouraged by the Libyan regime.86 By ocially supporting the ght against “illegal” migration while, in reality,tolerating smuggling networks, Libya reduces Italy’s potential gains. Libya’scorruption and double agenda impose substantial costs on Italy. Te latter hasinvested signicant resources and taken on new responsibilities to controlmigration rom Libya, and yet has ailed to obtain its desired outcomes, i.e.,

to bring under control irregular arrivals to Italy rom Libya.

In addition, the inormality o the agreements has created a urther constrainton Italian action. Indeed, the Italian government was asked to justiy theagreements beore numerous international organizations. Presumably due tomounting international pressure, in March 2006 Italy interrupted the returnights. Te short-term benets o reducing undocumented migrants wereovertaken by the costs o justiying ambiguous and controversial removalpolicies. Simply put, the reputational cost87 resulting rom the questionable

nature o the agreements became too high. Tis may explain the suddenpolicy change during the Berlusconi government, which was conrmed by the subsequent Prodi government. However, as I discuss in the conclusion,the implementation o the push-backs rom Italy to Libya in 2009 may potentially question this view.

Te cost-benet analyses or Italy and Libya set the ramework or answeringthe question on mutual obligations and assess whether the Italian-Libyan

non-standard agreements linked to readmission are based on reciprocity.Te arrangements entailed obligations on both sides. Te Italian governmentwas expected to nance the ights rom Italy to Libya and rom Libya tothird countries and the Libyan government was expected to allow the transito such ights. Tus, the Libya’s task was limited compared to the Italian

85 Frontex, “Frontex-Led EU Illegal Immigration echnical Mission to Libya,” May 28−June 5, 2007 (Warsaw: Frontex, 2007), pp. 13-15, http://www.statewatch.org/news/2007/

oct/eu-libya-rontex-report.pd.86 Ali Bensaad, “Journey to the Edge o Fear with the Illegal Immigrants o the Sahel,L M D (2001), http://www.monde-diplomatique.it/ricerca/ric_view_lem-onde.php3?page=/LeMonde-archivio/Settembre-2001/0109lm16.01.html&word=libia.

87 Lipson, “Why Are Some International Agreements Inormal?”




commitment to manage the ights. Within the specic ramework o thebilateral agreements, while Libya could ree-ride without negatively aectingItaly, the opposite was not the case. As observed, Italian withdrawal would not,and did not, alter Libya’s overall gain-loss balance. Indeed, Libya had limited

obligations. Because o the negligible costs involved and the signicantbenets, it had virtually no incentive to deault. Consequently, the bilateralagreements exempliy a situation o imbalance that is at variance with thebasic character o Keohane’s reciprocity norm, under which obligationsshould be proportionate to the benets enjoyed by both parties88. Hence,since there was little prospect o equivalent exchange the Italian-Libyannon-standard agreements linked to readmission can be dened as relationsamong unequals, with Italy being in the weaker position.89

Nonetheless, the appreciation o the broader agreements on migration may help recast such an imbalance and invite urther reection on the complexand diuse reciprocity at work.90 Indeed it has already been suggested thatItaly adheres to such an imbalance in the bilateral agreement on migrationwith the expectation o larger gains in their overall political and economicrelationship.91

CONCLUSION

Tis chapter has ocused on the implications o the bilateral agreementsbetween 2004 and 2006 to critically examine the bilateral bargaining dynamics.Given the ongoing and complex nature o the Italian-Libyan agreements my conclusions are neither nal nor comprehensive. For example, the recentdevelopments may well challenge the idea that the two countries have ailedto bring migration under control. Indeed, since May 2009 Italy has beenpushing back boats with irregular migrants arriving rom Libya that had beenintercepted in either international or national waters. In reversing its long-standing stance, whereby push-backs and joint-patrolling were consideredan inringement o its sovereign power, Libya has accepted boats withundocumented oreign nationals who had le rom Libya.92 Furthermore,

88. Keohane, “Reciprocity in International Relations,” p. 6.89. Keohane, “Reciprocity in International Relations,” p. 6.

90. Keohane, “Reciprocity in International Relations,” p. 8.91. Roberto Aliboni, “Mediterranean Security and Co-Operation: Interest and Role o Italy and Libya,” paper presented at the conerence on Libya and Italy as a New Model orNorth-South Relations, ripoli, Libya, April 14-15, 2002.

92. Senate o the Republic, 214ª S Ab R f 25




in concomitance with the implementation o the agreement in August 2008and, , the beginning o the construction o the highway as “biggesture” to apologize or the colonial past, the arrivals o irregular migrantsrom Libya have decreased by 90% compared to 2008.93 What, then, do the

agreements linked to readmission, and concluded between 2004 and 2006,tell us about the broader and evolving collaborative arrangements betweenthe two countries? Does the examination o the readmission agreementshold any relevance beyond the specicity o the selected bilateral case?

My empirical examination o the Italian-Libyan agreements linked toreadmission reveals the existence o multiple equilibria which distinguish thedynamics in bilateral bargaining. As ar as these agreements are concerned, ithas been suggested that their inormality have placed much greater political

and nancial costs on Italy than on Libya. Te corollary o this assumption isthat the cooperation on the charter ights aimed at removing unauthorizedaliens rom Italy to Libya constitutes a situation that Keohane denes asunequal reciprocity at the advantage o Libya. In the negotiations on migration,Libya is the most advantaged player who has to be induced to take part inthe cooperation, while Italy has little choice but to cooperate with Libya.94 Inother words, the high cost o ensuring Libya’s commitment creates a situationo “vulnerability” or Italy.95 Te patterns o cooperation on readmission

reect relations among unequals where practitioners are, at various degrees,exposed to the danger o exploitation and uncertain arrangements. In otherwords, the agreements linked to readmission analyzed in this chapter, as wellas the overall negotiations on migration, are based on exchanges o “mutually valued but non-comparable goods and services,”96 whereby the behavior o each party is contingent on the prior steps o the other.

Tis chapter has not examined the more recent developments concerningthe push back operations to Libya. Nor has it dealt with the broader

ramework o interaction in which the relations between Italy and Libyahave developed to date. Tese elements are analyzed in the chapters written

2009, http://www.senato.it/service/PDF/PDFServer/BG/424000.pd.93. Ministry o the Interior, “Illegal Immigration rom Libya – Landings decreased by

90%” (2009), http://www.interno.it/mininterno/export/sites/deault/it/sezioni/sala_stampa/notizie/2100_500_ministro/0152_2009_09_09_brdo.html.

94. Alexander Betts, I C Bw N S E R

P R O (Oxord: Reugee Studies Center, 2005), http://www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/PDFs/RSCworkingpaper25.pd, p. 45.95 Robert O. Keohane and Joseph Nye, Pw I, W P

(Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1977), pp. 13-15.96. Keohane, “Reciprocity in International Relations,” p. 6.




by Paolo Cuttitta and Silja Klepp.

Rather, I sought to reect upon power dynamics underlying the conclusionand implementation o the Italian-Libyan agreements linked to readmission.In so doing, I provided a tentative analytical ramework which could be

applied to other bilateral arrangements on migration. From a general pointo view, it is possible to speculate that the increasing relevance o migrationissues in the international arena may signicantly aect the patterns o states’interdependence while oering an opportunity to rethink substantially the mainstream reading o North-South power relations. Admittedly, my hypothesis, which views migration as a source o so power, cannot be testedwith a single case study. Nonetheless, it invites more systematic research onthe complexities and contradictions o evolving North-South relations.97

It is unlikely that an analysis based on North-South polarization wouldthoroughly account or the complexities and tensions existing between theconclusion o bilateral agreements and their concrete implementation. Teanalysis o reciprocity and obligations provides a useul tool or probingbeneath multiaceted and changing dynamics in which states cooperate ornot. A thorough examination o migration, viewed rom an IR perspective,may shed new light on global interdependencies and, more interestingly, onthe magnitude o the changes aecting the international system.

97. James Rosenau, “Te Complexities and Contradictions o Globalization,” C , Vol. 96 (1997), pp. 360-364.



C 4

Italy and its Libyan Cooperation Program:

Pioneer o the European Union’s Reugee Policy?

Silja Klepp

In recent years, the situation o migrants and reugees in the Mediterraneanhas become more critical. Possibilities o legally entering the territory

o the European Union have become more restrictive ollowing theimplementation o the Schengen and new visa regulations or non-EU nationals in the Mediterranean region. Irregular migration routes acrossthe Mediterranean Sea rom the Arican continent to Europe have beensubject to reinorced controls. European countries located at the externalborders have strengthened their cooperation with third-party countries o origin and o transit in order to curb unauthorized migration.

Tis chapter sets out to assess the ways in which the Italian and European

cooperation with Libya on migration and border controls aect theconditions o migrants living in Libya, as well as reugee protection. It isargued that existing patterns o bilateral cooperation may have variousconsequences on the respect or reugee protection standards. By combiningan empirical approach to border regions with a legal-anthropologicalperspective, this chapter discusses the emergence o new parameters asapplied to reugee protection. In addition, it analyzes whether Italy’s bilateralpatterns o cooperation with Libya have had a bearing on the ways in which

the European Union has shaped and congured its cooperation with Libya,at a supranational level, and whether it might inuence the overall reugeeprotection system promoted at the EU level. Te dynamic power relationsthat operate between actors on the ground in the border region, the Italiangovernment, and the European Union are described.

Te EU integration process is oen conceptualized as a zero-sum gamewhere decisional and operational powers are gradually relocated in adualistic process between the European institutions and the Member States.1

1. Sabine Hess and Vassilis sianos, “Europeanizing ransnationalism! ProvincializingEurope! Konturen eines neuen Grenzregimes! (Europeanizing ransnationalism! Provin-cializing Europe! Contours o a New Border Regime), in “ransit Migration Forschungs-




An approach that conceptualizes the EU integration process as a unctionaldevelopment, whereby the Member States and European institutionsconstitute the only powerul actors, cannot adequately grasp the intendedand unintended eects o the policies implemented in the border regions.

In this chapter, the ever-changing Mediterranean migration policy regimewill be approached as a “multi-sited arena o negotiation.”2 Accordingly, theinter-connections o local, national, and supranational actors are studied,acknowledging the complex character o plural legal orders.

I rst discuss the development o the cooperation between Italy and Libyaon migration control issues. Ten, I assess the extent to which developmentsinherent in the bilateral cooperation between Libya and Italy may or may notaect policy measures adopted at the EU level. Te impact o such cooperation

on the conditions o migrants and reugees in Libya are illustrated with elddata and interviews made with stakeholders and migrants in Libya.

E IALIAN-LIBAN COOPERAION ON MIGRAION AND BORDERCONROLS

In recent years, the perception o Libya by European migration policy makersand the public has changed dramatically: rom a ormer country o destination

or migrants rom Arab and sub-Saharan countries, Libya is now widely viewed as a transit country or Arican migrants and reugees3 trying to reachEurope. Giuseppe Pisanu, ormer Italian Minister o the Interior, said in 2005that “a million illegal migrants” are waiting to cross the Mediterranean romLibya to Italy.4 Tis statement reects the existence o a (perceived) threat thatis oen connected with the rising number o unauthorized migrants arrivingon the coast o Sicily (the largest Southern Italian island).

gruppe,“ ed., urbulente Ränder – Neue Perspektiven au Migration an den Grenzen Euro-pas [New Perspectives on Migration in the Borders o Europe] (Bieleeld: ranskript, 2007),pp. 23-39.

2. Franz Von Benda-Beckmann, Keebet Von Benda-Beckmann, and A. Griths, “MobilePeople, Mobile Law: An Introduction,” Mb P, Mb Lw: E L R C W (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), pp. 1-24.

3. In this chapter, the term “migrant” will be used as an umbrella term or labor migrantsand reugees alike. According to the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Statuso Reugees, a reugee is a person who, owing to a well-ounded ear o being persecuted or

reasons o race, religion, nationality, membership o a particular social group, or politicalopinion, is outside the country o their nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such ear, isunwilling to avail him/hersel o the protection o that country.

4. “In 2005 More than Four Returns with the Charter,” I M, August 11, 2005,http://www.meltingpot.org/articolo5826.html.




An estimated 10% o undocumented migrants currently living in Italy arrived by sea. Te phenomenon o “overstayers,” i.e. migrants who stay onthe territory o a destination country beyond the expiration o their entry visa, is much more signicant.5

In addition, available statistics appear to be unclear when it comes to Libya’smigratory reality. Figures related to undocumented migrants in the country vary considerably. For instance, the 2005 report o the European Commission’s

technical mission to Libya stated that “the Libyan authorities estimate thenumber o legal oreign workers at 600,000, whereas unauthorized migrantsare estimated to number between 750,000 and 1.2 million.”6 With a populationo about 5.5 million inhabitants, it is clear that Libya, aside rom being atransit country, remains mainly a country o immigration and destination.

Libya has no established regulatory or administrative system that identiesand protects reugees. Libya is the only North Arican country which is notParty to the 1951 Geneva Convention on Reugees and has no asylum system.In this respect, an ocial o the Libyan Ministry o Foreign Aairs said “i Libya oered asylum, asylum seekers would come like a plague o locusts.“7 Despite the lack o a genuine asylum system, Libya hosts a large number o migrants originating in sub-Saharan Arica, namely Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia,and the Democratic Republic o Congo who are in need o protection.8

Since the late 1990s, Italy has promoted bilateral cooperation with Libya.Migration control became a key component o the bilateral cooperation.

Te rst contacts were established in a sensitive policy context as Libya was

5. Caritas, “Summary – Statistical Dossier on Immigration,” XV Report (Rome: Idos,2005).

6. European Commission, echnical Mission to Libya on Illegal Migration November 17–December 6, 2004 Report, 7753/05 (Brussels: European Commission, 2005), p. 58, http://www.statewatch.org/news/2005/may/eu-report-libya-ill-imm.pd.


R, Volume 18, No. 5(E) (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2006), http://www.hrw.org/reports/2006/libya0906/.8. Rutvica Andrijasevic, “How to Balance Rights and Responsibilities on Asylum at the

EU’s Southern Border o Italy and Libya,” Working Paper No. 27, Center on Migration, Poli-cy and Society (University o Oxord, 2006), p. 14.

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

2,782 5,504 18,225 14,017 13,594 22,824 21,400 16,875 32,000

Table 1: Landings on Sicily and the minor Sicilian islands

S: I R C (CIR) UNCR.




regarded as a “rogue state” and sanctioned by the UN and the EU. Basedon the special relationship o a common colonial history, and bounded by important economic ties, the talks progressed quickly. In December 2000,the rst general agreement aimed at ghting terrorism, organized crime, and

undocumented immigration was signed in Rome.

9

In 2003 and 2004, additional bilateral agreements were signed and signicantmeasures o cooperation were introduced under the presidency o SilvioBerlusconi. A program o charter ights nanced by Italy to removeundocumented migrants to their home countries was implemented. echnicalequipment and training programs were provided to better control the Libyanborders, including patrol boats and ngerprinting kits.10 Likewise, the rstconstruction o a camp or undocumented migrants nanced by Italy was

created in 2003 in Gharyan, close to ripoli. Additional camps were nancedthe ollowing years, or example in Kura and Sebah.11 Te detailed contentso the July 2003 agreement, which regulates the practical cooperationbetween the security orces o the two countries, remain beyond publicpurview. Furthermore, there are several inormal agreements whose contentis likewise uncertain.12 Inormality and secrecy surrounding the agreementhave so ar characterized the cooperation between Italy and Libya.

Te rst eects o the bilateral cooperation occurred in late 2004. Since

October 2004, more than 4,000 third-country nationals have been removedrom the Italian island Lampedusa to Libya.13 Rising criticisms ollowed suchremovals. Various Italian and European NGOs and the European Parliamentclaimed that the Italian authorities ailed to respect the undamental rightso asylum seekers.14 Moreover, thirteen NGOs appealed to the European

9. European Commission Report 7753/05 (2005), p. 58.10. European Commission Report 7753/05 (2005), p. 59.11. Andrijasevic, “How to Balance Rights and Responsibilities on Asylum at the EU’s

Southern Border o Italy and Libya,” p. 9.12. Paolo Cuttitta, “Il Controllo Dell’immigrazione tra Nordarica e Italia” [“Migration

Control between Northern Arican Countries and Italy”], in N. Dentico and M. Gressi, eds.,Lb B: I C Pz Az I [W P: D C I] , C z z [Commit-tee or the Promotion and Protection o Human Rights] (2006), http://www.comitatodirri-tiumani.org.

13. Bernd Riegert, “S Kk Fü L” [Harsh Criticism

o Detention Centers in Lampedusa], D W, September 23, 2005, http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,1718149,00.html.14. European Parliament, Report o the EP Delegation to Libya, 2005, http://www.europarl.

europa.eu/news/expert/inopress_page/029-3243-339-12-49-903-20051206IPR03242-05-12-2005-2005-alse/deault_de.htm.




Commission to sanction Italy or having disregarded the interdiction o collective expulsions and or having violated the principle o o the 1951 Geneva Convention on Reugees. NGOs also underlined theirconcern that migrants detained in closed centers in Libya might become

victims o human rights violations.

15

Te May 2006 government reshufe that took place in Italy brought an endto the much criticized policy aimed at expelling third-country nationals toLibya. Nevertheless, cooperation in terms o border security and the nancingo deportation ights and detention centers in Libya continued under thele-wing government headed by Romano Prodi. On his November 2007 visitto ripoli, Italian Minister o Foreign Aairs, Massimo D’Alema, promisedthe construction o a highway and enhanced economic relations with Libya.16

Against this background, a new agreement was signed on December 29, 2007,which, among other things, reinorced bilateral maritime cooperation.

Italy set out to induce Libya to become more cooperative on the control o maritime borders. It has to be said that Libya has been reluctant to tolerateoreign security orces on its territory. For this reason, the December 2007agreement was viewed as a watershed. For the rst time, a treaty allowedItalian boats to patrol in Libyan territorial waters. Joint maritime patrols o the Italian police and Libyan army were created. Such joint patrols allow the

apprehension o migrants leaving the Libyan shores to then push them backto Libya. Tis cooperative agreement also resulted rom inormal negotiationsbetween security experts and ocials.

It was not beore 2008 that bilateral relations gained urther impetus whenSilvio Berlusconi, the ormer and current Prime Minister o Italy, and ColonelMuammar Al Gadhay signed a “riendship and cooperation agreement”( z) in Benghazi on August 30, 2008. Te wide-rangingtreaty was negotiated or years and was concluded to compensate Libya orthe damage stemming rom the Italian colonial period. Italy committed topaying $5 billion over a 20-year period, including the construction o a long-demanded highway rom unisia to Egypt. Te amount allocated to Libyaoresees investments in the building sector, as well as scholarships or Libyanstudents wishing to study in Italy. Additionally, Italy’s national oil company,ENI, had its Libyan contract extended or another twenty-ve years. Another

15. Andrijasevic, “How to Balance Rights and Responsibilities on Asylum at the EU’sSouthern Border o Italy and Libya,”p. 11.16. On October 16, 2007 a contract about the investment o $27 billion in the Libyan

oil sector was signed between the two national energy companies ENI (Italy) and NOC(Libya).




advantage stemming rom the z lies in the act that Article19 states that the parties commit to reinorcing border controls in order tocurb unauthorized migration.17 On his visit to Benghazi, Berlusconi alsopushed or the quick implementation o the December 2007 agreement

which, as o 2008, was not ully implemented.Such developments are illustrative o the secrecy that has gradually characterized the bilateral relations between Italy and Libya since the late1990s to date. Despite growing criticisms rom the Italian parliament and various NGOs concerned about the violation o human and reugee rights,collaboration has expanded rapidly. Secrecy and inormality also allow theparliamentary control on the Italian cooperation policy with Libya to becircumvented. Under these circumstances, any step aimed at improving the

conditions o migrants kept in detention in Libya and at monitoring therespect or their human rights might turn out to be dicult.18

LIBA, IAL, AND E EUROPEAN UNION

Having illustrated the cooperation between Italy and Libya on migration andborder controls, I set out to investigate the extent to which it has had any

impact on the ways in which the European Union has ramed its bilateralpolicy with Libya. A report o the European Commission 2005 criticized theconditions in which migrants are detained in Libya and the arbitrarinesso its detention system.19 Furthermore the report acknowledged that thereis no asylum system in Libya.20 Despite these criticisms, the Commissionrecommended cooperation with Libya on migration issues, stating that thereshould be a change in Libya’s reugee policy.21 In its conclusions, the June 2005European Council conditioned cooperation with Libya with the recognitiono UNHCR, the principle o and the ull respect or humanrights.22

17. ana de Zulueta, “Gadda Strips O Diplomatic Fig Leaves,” T G (2009),http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisree/2009/jun/11/gadda-libya-italy.

18. Human Rights Watch S Fw: Ab A M, A Sk R (2006); Fortress Europe, F S. I C Dz DLb [Borderland Sahara. Detention Camps in the Libyan Desert], 2006, http://ortresseu-rope.blogspot.com/2006/01/rontiera-sahara-i-campi-di-detenzione.htm.

19. European Commission Report 7753/05 (2005), pp. 31-37.20. European Commission Report 7753/05 (2005), p. 52.21. European Commission Report 7753/05 (2005), p. 7.22. Sara Hamood, “Arican ransit Migration through Libya to Europe: Te Human Cost,”

Cairo: Forced Migration and Reugee Studies (Cairo: Te American University in Cairo,




In June 2005, the Libyan-EU cooperation started on an operationalbasis while taking the 2005 Commission’s report as a reerence or utureorientations and policy options. Institution building and training programsaimed at reinorcing border controls, along with the management o asylum

were identied as key areas o cooperation.

23

Moreover, ora o discussionwith Libya were introduced, such as the 5+5 Dialogue on Migration in theWestern Mediterranean.24

In September 2006, Commissioner Frattini approved technical equipmentworth €3 million to Libya.25 In November 2006, the EU-Arica MinisterialConerence on Migration and Development held in ripoli was a symbolically important step to reinorce the relations with Libya. When Libya reed theoreign doctors and nurses convicted in July 2007 o having inected Libyan

children with HIV,26

a new era began or EU-Libyan relations. In July 2007,ocial talks on a cooperation partnership started, covering various areas o mutual interest. Te establishment o a system or the control o Libyan landand maritime borders, nanced by the EU, was part o the partnership.27

On the ormal political level, the developments o the cooperation on migrationissues between Libya and the EU are still limited, however. It is once more theoperational and practical component which seems to make headway, leavingthe ormal democratic decision making processes behind. Frontex, the

European Border Agency based in Warsaw, which has been criticized or a lacko transparency and democratic accountability in its work on the Europeanexternal borders,28 has pushed in avor o wider cooperation programs with

2006), p. 74, http://www.migreurop.org/IMG/pd/hamood-libya.pd.23. Hamood, “Arican ransit Migration through Libya to Europe: Te Human Cost,” p.

74.24. Members are: Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, unisia and France, Italy, Malta,

Portugal, and Spain.25. Paolo Cuttitta, “Te Changes in the Fight Against Illegal Immigration in the Euro-

Mediterranean Area and in Euro-Mediterranean Relations,” Working Paper (Brussels: Cen-ter or European Policy Studies, 2007) http://libertysecurity.org/article1293.html.

26. Te Libyan police in 1999 imprisoned 23 medical sta members working at the hospi-tal. Gadhay said the health workers had deliberately spread HIV among the children in thehospital at the behest o the CIA and Israel’s Mossad. Except or ve Bulgarian nurses and aPalestinian doctor, all other workers were immediately reed. Aer international protest they were released in July 2007.

27. “Libya, EU Start alks on Cooperation Partnership,” Lb, 2007, http://www.libyaonline.com/news/details.php?id=943 (accessed January 2007).28. Sergio Carrera, “Te EU Border Management Strategy FRONEX and the Challenges

o Irregular Immigration in the Canary Islands,” CEPS Working Document No. 261 (Brus-sels: Center or European Policy Studies, March 2007), p. 4.




Libya. Deputy Executive Director o Frontex Gil Arias sent a letter to Libyanocials in May 2007 asking or Libya’s cooperation in the ramework o jointpatrolling operations in the Mediterranean Sea.29 Tis initiative resembledthe one that Italy had already initiated with Libya. Actually, Frontex proposed

to patrol in Libyan waters with a view to intercepting unauthorized migrants.Te 2007 Frontex report on Libya is a ollow-up to the 2005 report o theEuropean Commission, and reasserted Libya’s reluctance to become Party tothe 1951 Geneva Convention on reugees.30

Clearly, the report produced by Frontex did not mention the human rightssituation in Libya or the dreadul conditions aced by migrants in detention.Numbers and statistics on migrants deported and detained are extensively mentioned and nal policy recommendations only call or an improvement

o the cooperation.31

Te addendum to the report includes an impressive listo technical material required by Libya to improve its border management,including 10 ships, 12 reconnaissance aircras, 18 helicopters, 22 ully equipped command centers, 86 trucks, 100 rubber boats, 240 jeeps, and more.Libya never joined the patrolling operations promoted by Frontex in theMediterranean in 2008 and 2009 and remained opposed to the possibility o extending such operations to its territorial waters. However, given the positivebilateral developments with Italy in the eld o joint patrolling operations in

the Libyan territorial waters, one is entitled to expect that similar operationswill also take place at a European level. Former European Commissioner o Justice Franco Frattini and current Commissioner Jacques Barrot have statedrepeatedly that a Libyan participation would be o great use.32

Tere can be no question that Italy has played a critical part in acilitatingthe emergence and consolidation o an EU-Libyan partnership. Te country already improved its relations with Libya in the late 1990s when Libya wasstill a pariah state and has since ostered bilateral cooperation. In recent years

the Italian governments proactively brought pressure to bear on the EuropeanUnion to abolish the EU embargo on Libya — which was lied in October

29. Frontex, “Frontex-Led EU Illegal Immigration echnical Mission to Libya 28 May−5June 2007,” (Warsaw: Frontex, 2007), p. 9, http://www.statewatch.org/news/2007/oct/eu-lib-ya-rontex-report.pd (accessed January 2008).

30. Frontex, “Frontex-Led EU Illegal Immigration echnical Mission to Libya 28 May−5June 2007,” p. 9.

31. Frontex, “Frontex-Led EU Illegal Immigration echnical Mission to Libya 28 May−5June 2007,” p. 19.32 Meltingpot, “F: 2008 F b” [“Frattini: From 2008 Fron-

tex Operating in Libyan erritorial Waters”], http://www.meltingpot.org/articolo11163.html.




2004 — and to cooperate with the Libyan regime.33 It could even be arguedthat Italy is acting as a orerunner o the European Union, not only in the eldo migration controls but also in the ways in which cooperative agreements,at the European level, have been ramed. For instance, cooperation programs

and nancial assistance were carried out beore bilateral relations wereormally established. Following the Italian model, the EU did not ask or legalguarantees, nor did it call or a concrete improvement o the situation o migrants and asylum-seekers in Libya as a prerequisite to cooperating withLibya.

Te ways in which cooperative agreements have been ramed also allowed orthe consolidation o a migration control regime. For example, the Germanresearch group ransit Migration showed how a migration control regime,

creating the hitherto unknown phenomenon o the “illegal migrant,” wasestablished in urkey by the European Union. Main actors were not ocialinstitutions o the EU, but international organizations (mainly UNHCR andIOM as well as NGOs), which were nanced by the EU and which establisheda new discourse around the phenomenon o “illegal migration.” Te researchgroup identied a new policy culture o governing the external borders o the EU, whereby the knowledge o experts and technocrats plays a centralrole and where recommendations are based on a “multi-level-governance” in

dierent ormal and inormal working groups.34

In a similar vein, as a result o the Italian-German Cap Anamur35 case insummer 2004, a discussion around migrants, viewed as deenseless victimso smugglers, started to “humanitarize” the problems at the external borderso the European Union. Te Cap Anamur case was used by the Italian Min-

33. Cuttitta, “Te Changes in the Fight Against Illegal Immigration in the Euro-Mediter-ranean Area and in Euro-Mediterranean Relations,” p. 178.

34. Sabine Hess and Serhat Karakayali, “D K R. Ak M EUM ” [“Te Imperial Art o Governing. Asylum Discourses and Human Rights Optionals in the New Migration-Ma-nagement o the EU“], In ransit Migration Forschungsgruppe, ed., b Rä –N Pk M Gz E (Bieleeld: ranskript, 2007), p.47.

35. Cap Anamur is a German humanitarian association which provides assistance to war victims. On June 20, 2004, a reighter o the Cap Anamur rescued a small boat ull o sub-Saharan migrants, sinking in international waters between Malta and the Italian island o Lampedusa. Owing to diplomatic tensions between Germany, Malta, and Italy, the Cap Ana-

mur boat was not allowed by the port authorities to dock in Malta or in Italy. Eventually,as the situation onboard deteriorated, the boat docked at Porto Empedocle in Sicily. Terescuers were arrested by the Italian authorities. Te rescued migrants claimed asylum inItaly but their claims were all rejected. Aer a period o detention, they were removed toGhana and Nigeria.




ister o Interior Giuseppe Pisanu and his German counterpart Otto Schily to introduce R P P (RPPs) at an EU level. RPPs wereput orward in September 2005 by the European Commission in order toenhance the reugee protection capacity o both transit and source countries“by providing Durable Solutions (the three Durable Solutions being repa-

triation, local integration or resettlement in a third country.”36 RPPs were viewed by Schily and Pisanu as a “durable solution” to tackle thehumanitarian problem o unauthorized migrants drowning in the Medi-terranean.37 Te idea o RPPs was given major attention at the Stockholmprogram that was adopted at the December 2009 Council o the EuropeanUnion.38

Meanwhile, Italy established a broad cooperation program “on the ground”with Libya and other North Arican countries by unding detention centers

and organizing removal charter ights. In contrast with RPPs which areaimed at reinorcing the reugee protection capacity o countries o tran-sit and o origin, among other things, the issue o reugee protection is notconsidered in the Italian ramework o cooperation. As Andrijasevic states,the implementation o the cooperative programs with Libya is not aimedat transerring asylum systems outside the EU external borders, “rather [it]deprives asylum-seekers o the possibility to access the asylum determina-tion procedure.”39 Te result is not the externalization o the asylum systemthrough policy transers o good practices in the eld reugee protection,but its abandonment. Such developments might jeopardize the concrete ap-

plication o reugee standards, including the respect or the principle o .

Ulrich Beck and Edgar Grande40 describe the integration process o theEuropean Union as a “” (Nb) whereby theprocess o Europeanization itsel is dened by national and supranationalinstitutions, leading oen to unintended consequences. Beck and Grande view the integration process as an “z ” that

36. European Commission, Communication rom the Commission to the Council andthe European Parliament on Regional Protection Programmes, 388 (European Commission,2005a), p. 2.

37. Hess and sianos, “Europeanizing ransnationalism! Provincializing Europe! Kontu-ren eines neuen Grenzregimes! Euroepeanizing ransnationalism! Provincializing Europe!Contours o a New Border Regime, in ransit Migration Forschungsgruppe,“p. 34.

38 European Council, “Te Stockholm Programme – An Open and Secure Europe Serv-ing and Protecting the Citizens,” December 2, 2009, p. 72, http://www.se2009.eu/polopoly_

s/1.26419!menu/standard/le/Klar_Stockholmsprogram.pd .39. Andrijasevic, “How to Balance Rights and Responsibilities on Asylum at the EU’sSouthern Border o Italy and Libya,”p. 15.

40. Ulrich Beck and Edgar Grande, “D k E” [“Te CosmopoliticalEurope”] (Frankurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2004).




ollows no master plan and becomes clear only in retrospect, but is theinitiator o sometimes ar-reaching decisions.41

Tis seems to be the case regarding the Italian-Libyan cooperative agreementsand their impact on the overall European reugee protection system. Being

driven by a process which has developed its own dynamics, beyond thepurview o democratic institutions, the danger o exporting border controlregimes to Northern Arica without setting European standards or humanrights and reugee protection is high, as Cuttitta observes.42 Consequently,the European Union is gradually abandoning its own aspiration o spreadinghuman rights through cooperation with neighboring countries, a strategy that was enshrined in the Barcelona declaration adopted at the 1995 Euro-Mediterranean Conerence. Especially in the Libyan case, which or several

reasons (e.g. economic and political ones) is less open to a European inuencethan other North Arican countries, it is likely that European standards o cooperation will be weakened instead o positively inuencing the humanrights agenda o Libya. Te “imperial character” that, according to somescholars, characterizes European migration policy towards third countries,might induce a backlash. It is not the European Union or Italy that seemsto determine the conditions o that cooperation, but rather the Libyangovernment. It is unlikely that Libya will agree to make progress in the eld

o human rights observance and reugee protection as shown in the nextsection.

IN RIPOLI

In this section, I propose to connect the Italian and European policy ontransit migration in Libya with my own research experience and eldwork.Te main purpose o my eldwork in ripoli was to explore the conditionsaced by migrants and reugees in Libya. Te point was to understand whethertheir conditions had changed since the implementation o the Italian andEuropean cooperation programs and how migrants and reugees perceivedany change in their living conditions in Libya.

Libya remains a tightly controlled country with very little room or criticismo the ruling government and its regime. It was clear rom the beginning thatstudying the situation o migrants was a sensitive research issue in Libya.

41. Beck and Grande, “D k E,”p. 62.42. Cuttitta, “Te Changes in the Fight Against Illegal Immigration in the Euro-Mediter-

ranean Area and in Euro-Mediterranean Relations,” p. 199.




In ripoli, migrants rom sub-Saharan countries are visible all over the urbanarea. Tey clean pavements, work as inormal street traders, or wait in certainplaces or occasional jobs to come up. Migrants rom Arab countries are oenemployed in catering and services. Tey mainly work in the inormal sector

and have dicult access to legal employment. Most migrants, thereore,have irregular revenues. Social networks, based in general on contacts withcompatriots and on religious aliation, are o vital importance.

Given the diculties in interviewing migrants in public spaces, I could startmy eldwork thanks to the assistance o a small Christian community inripoli which provided useul contacts with migrants. Visits and interviewsin the segregated districts o ripoli, where migrants and reugees romsub-Saharan countries mostly live, became possible. Later on, I could visit

reugees outside ripoli. Te outskirts o the capital were occupied by variousimmigrant communities originating, in Sierra Leone, Cote d’Ivoire, andNigeria, among others. Young men were living together, sharing two rooms.Tey were all educated; some o them had a university degree.

Tey came to Libya our years ago to escape war-torn areas. All o themwere holders o an ocial letter rom the UNHCR. Tis letter stated they were entitled to air treatment and to the respect o their special need orprotection. During the interviews, the respondents told me that the UNHCR

letter was o no help when they were intercepted by the Libyan security orces. Daniel was in detention or more than a year, a ew weeks beore Imet him. Only when he was brought to Sebah, a Southern city in the desert,did UNHCR manage to get him out o detention. He said that conditionsin detention centers were dreadul and that violence by the Libyan guardswas common and used in an arbitrary manner. Tere were regular cases o violence and torture against detainees, “they treated us like animals” he saidagain and again. Furthermore, overcrowding, poor hygienic conditions, and

insucient ood were a problem. Daniel said that, or the whole period o hisdetention, he stayed together with around 80 other detainees in a 35 squaremeter room.

When talking about removals, the interviewees were convinced thatmigrants are regularly removed by plane by the Libyan authorities to othercountries, but many o them are also brought to border regions in thedesert. Indeed, there are reports by embassies rom dierent sub-Saharancountries complaining that their nationals have disappeared during theirremovals.43 Te ocial number o 106 migrants’ deaths, ollowing Libyan





overland expulsions between October 2004 and March 2005, was denouncedin a resolution o the European Parliament adopted in April 2005.44 Recentreports seem to conrm that expulsions o unauthorized migrants romLibya have continued.45

Samuel said that his UNHCR letter was destroyed in ront o him by aLibyan police ocer. In his opinion, the ocial UNHCR letter is o no useor reugees in Libya. Liberian interviewees explained they did not eel saein Libya anymore, as they live in ear o being detained and it gets harderand harder to nd even an occasional job. Tey hoped to be resettled in aEuropean country, through UNHCR resettlement programs, although theseare implemented “only or individual emergency cases.”46

When I asked interviewees i they would cross the Mediterranean by boat,

they rejected this option. Tey would not risk their lie: “everybody knowshow dangerous the journey to Italy is” they said. In their opinion, Italy putspressure on Libya in order to control migrants. Whole groups o migrants arepreventatively detained in Libya on the grounds that they want to cross theMediterranean to Italy, even i this was not their intention.

As mentioned in the introduction, it is important to understand whetherbilateral cooperation on the control o migration ows and borders may

impact the conditions aced by the interviewed reugees.Almost all the interviewees I met in Libya rom sub-Saharan countries hadexperienced detention and imprisonment. A Nigerian man I met in a churchdied o tuberculosis shortly aer his release rom detention. I got to know himthe evening o his release rom prison. He was in very bad shape and said thator three days he had been drinking just salty sea water. He contracted aninection in the detention center, where contagious diseases are common.

Detailed inormation and numbers on detained immigrants in Libya are

scarce or dicult to obtain. In June 2006, the Libyan authorities declared that“some 60,000 illegal migrants” were detained.47 Te interviews carried out in

R (2006), p. 56.44. European Parliament, European Parliament Resolution on Lampedusa, April

14 2005, p. 2, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do;jsessionid=8B5BEAAD5A39468ECA77F272A4E6D528.node2?pubRe=-//EP//EX+A+P6-A-2005-0138+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN.

45. Fortress Europe, F S. I z b [BorderlandSahara. Detention Camps in the Libyan Desert] (2009).46. Human Rights Watch, S Fw: Ab A M, A Sk

R (2006), p. 27.47. Frontex, “Frontex-Led EU Illegal Immigration echnical Mission to Libya 28 May−5




ripoli, as well the reports written by human rights organizations,48 showedthat detention in Libya is oen characterized by violence, opacity as to whois detained and or how long, and by the absence o any judicial system orremedy based on Libyan law.

Concerning the impact o Italian policy on the situation o migrants inLibya, Amnesty International argued in April 2005 that there is an indirectconnection between the Italian-Libyan bilateral agreements and the risingnumber o migrants placed in detention in Libya.49 In a similar vein, memberso the delegation o the European Commission who visited in December2004 detention centers in Libya declared that “the majority o the people(mainly rom Niger, Ghana, and Mali) seem to have been arrested the day beore the experts’ visit.”50 Tis statement echoes what a Liberian interviewed

reugee said to me: “Te Libyans want to show that they are doing somethingagainst migrants to satisy the European countries which are important tradepartners.”51 Additionally, according to an assessment made by UNHCR, theLibyan government’s crackdowns and wide-scale imprisonment o migrantsbegan soon aer Italy opted to remove migrants to Libya. Subsequently, thesewere expelled rom Libya to their countries o origin in autumn 2004.52

Dr. Miah Shalgam, Ambassador o Libya to Malta, explained in an interviewdated October 2007:

Beore, we had this policy o seeing us as part o the Arab world and A-rican continent... And we eel that these people are our neighbors, broth-ers, and sisters. We eel that when you have some wealth and you are ina good position, why not allow these people to stay sometime? We don’tneed them, or that we can bring skilled labor rom Asia or Philippines… But these people are coming. And when they are coming we havetraditions. When you have a guest, you cannot send a guest away; you

have to eed them, at least or some time. In act you are duty-bound toprovide him with what he needs. At least, or some time. So these people

June 2007,” p. 10.48 Human Rights Watch, S Fw: Ab A M, A Sk

R (2006).49. Amnesty International, “Immigration Cooperation with Libya: the Human Rights

Perspective,” http://www.amnesty-eu.org/static/documents/2005/JHA_Libya_april12.pd

(accessed March 2007).50. European Commission Report 7753/05 (2005), p. 31.51. Interview by author with a reugee rom Liberia, ripoli, 2006.52 Human Rights Watch, S Fw: Ab A M, A Sk

R (2006), p. 26.




are our neighbors. And when we were under colonial power we went tothese countries. Libyans used to live in Chad, in Niger, in Egypt. So they received us, so maybe now it’s our turn. It doesn’t mean that we have apolicy o welcoming them, but when they come you have to deal nicely,at least or some time, and then convince them to go. But now, under Eu-

ropean pressure, we took some hard steps, some hard measures … UnderEuropean pressure, because o immigration, Libya was taking some stepswhich it normally will not take. By orcing them, detaining them, andthen trying to orce them back. And this is because o the European pres-sure. Because we don’t want our relations with Europe to suer rom this.But some times you end up doing something which you did not want todo …We eel that it was creating a problem with our neighbors. Malta,Italy… Ten we elt that we have to do something. Let us do somethingto convince them that we are doing our best.53

Te Libyan ambassador emphasized that the patterns o cooperation withItaly and the EU did not only change the policy o Libya in the eld o migration and asylum. According to him, it also aected Libyan customary law, which is based on the Muslim right to hospitality and assistance to theneedy. He argued that, as a result o Italian and European policy pressures,these traditions could no longer apply to people originating in Libya’s

neighboring countries.O course, the Libyan ambassador’s statement should be taken with caution.Libya has or many decades ordered the detention and expulsion o undesirable aliens, even when no “pressure” was exerted by the EuropeanUnion and its Member States. What is interesting is the act that currentpolicy options are rhetorically justied and justiable, in the above interviewo the Libyan ocial, with reerence to external orces that prompt Libyato behave coercively. However, most interestingly, is that this rhetoric also

weaves its way into the discourse o some o the reugees I interviewed. Forinstance, Liberian interviewees in ripoli accounted or Libya’s restrictiveimmigration policy by reerring to Italy’s strong pressure exerted on Libyanauthorities.

Some migrants I met have lived in Libya or many years and seemed to leada well established lie with a regular job. Astonishingly, they also did not seetheir uture in Libya. An Eritrean woman, Nara, said:

53. Interview by author with Dr. Miah Shalgam, Ambassador o Libya to Malta, Balzan,October 2007.




oday, I don’t know anybody who wants to stay in Libya. Beore, it wasdierent, until some years ago Aricans could earn some good money inLibya and then return to their amilies. oday, they don’t nd a job andhave to ear detention. Some go back to their home countries. I cannot goback to Eritrea. I am planning to go to Italy.54

Like Nara, other migrants who lived in Libya or years also seemed tobe worried about their uture. As Nara, who had lost a sister crossing theMediterranean Sea, most migrants are perectly aware o the risk they acewhen they travel to Italy by boat. Nonetheless, they opt or the journey. “Weeel trapped in Libya” was a sentence I heard several times talking to sub-Saharan migrants.

Te changes in the lives o migrants in Libya in recent times studied againstthe background o the Italian and EU cooperation policy make visible that,rom a humanitarian and a border security perspective , the bilateral andEuropean cooperation policy is counterproductive: o escape the decliningsituation in Libya more, and not less, migrants are trying to reach theEuropean continent through Italy. Landings were heavily rising rom 2004to 2008. Tese arrivals may stem rom the restrictive immigration policiesthat Libya has adopted over the last ew years as a response to its cooperation

with Italy and the European Union. In January 2008, the Libyan governmentdecided to summarily deport all undocumented aliens, including would-beasylum-seekers. Housing ocials were also asked to pull down migrants’shelters in the suburbs o the capital and in other cities. One is prompted towonder whether such measures have acquired more policy meaningulnessas a result o Libya’s reinorced cooperation with the European Union,especially with Italy.

CONCLUSION

Clearly, it is dicult to properly assess whether bilateral patterns o cooperation on migration and border controls have impacted on theadoption o restrictive policy options at a European level. Nonetheless, theeldwork carried out in Libya, as well as the evidenced security paradigmthat drives the cooperation with Libya, seem to support the argument that

bilateral patterns o cooperation might impact on the ways in which the EU

54. Interview by author with an Eritrean woman, ripoli, October 10, 2006.




reugee protection system is being ramed and congured. However, suchcause-and-eect relationships remain to be better explored, particularly regarding their implications or respect o the principle o enshrined in the 1951 Geneva Convention and in its 1967 protocol.

Cooperation is oen accompanied by policy transers that are expected togradually improve the legal and technical capacity o recipient countries tomanage migration ows (whether legal or not) and asylum. Te researchgroup “ransit Migration” observed this gradual process o policy transer,or Europeanization, with reerence to urkish migration and border controlsystems, even i improvements started hesitantly.55

In the case o Libya, the resilience o bilateral patterns based on inormalinteraction shaped by short-term security concerns might qualiy the impact

o such policy transers, as they might not be directly conducive to majorimprovements. For now, it seems unlikely that the situation o migrantsand reugees in Libya will improve as a result o the reinorced patterns o cooperation. Moreover, the drive or exibility and operability, which thusar has shaped the bilateral cooperation on migration between Italy andLibya, might be regarded by other European actors as a workable option toovercome Libya’s reluctance to improve its reugee protection standards andhuman rights observance.

55. Hess and Karakayali, “D K R. Ak M EUM ,” p. 43.




NOES ON CONRIBUORS

Jean-Pierre Cassarino is (part-time) proessor at the Migration Policy Cen-ter o the Robert Schuman Center or Advanced Studies (RSCAS/EuropeanUniversity Institute, Florence, http://www.eui.eu/migrationcenter). He is also

scientic advisor at the Rome-based Institute or International Aairs (IAI).He has published extensively on return migration and development as wellas on state-to-state cooperation on migration and border controls. Email: [email protected]

Paolo Cuttitta is a research ellow at the University o Palermo (D P, D Sà) and an appointed lecturer at thesame university (Fà L Ff). He has carried out researchactivities at the C Nz R ― IREM (Naples), at the

Humboldt-University (Berlin) and at the al-Manar University (unis). E-mail: [email protected]

Silja Klepp studied Social Anthropology and is member o the InternationalResearch raining School “Critical Junctures o Globalization” at the Univer-sity o Leipzig. She is a PhD candidate and is currently doing research on theEuropean Union’s reugee protection policy in the Mediterranean. She car-ried out eldwork in Libya, Malta, Italy, Zambia and Germany. Email: [email protected]

Emanuela Paoletti is Research Ocer at the International Migration In-stitute and Junior Fellow at Somerville College, Oxord. She obtained herPh.D. at the University o Oxord where she did her doctoral research on theItalian-Libyan agreements on migration and international relations theory.Her Ph.D. will be published with Palgrave Macmillan. Previously, Emanuelaworked at DAI Europe, a private economic development consultancy basedin London. She also worked in Brussels rst at the European Commissionand then as a Consultant or the Italian National Agency o Public Adminis-tration. Email: [email protected]

Documents

Jean-Pierre Cassarino (ed.), Unbalanced Reciprocities: Cooperation on Readmission in the Euro-Mediterranean Area. Washington: Middle East Institute, 2010