Could Italy impose selective landing on immigrants? Keys to the Giorgia Meloni Government’s first pulse to the EU

Can Italy land selectively?

As it is a new decree and legal proceedings are announced, a court has to decide. However, analysts to date, in these cases, Ruled against Italian and European justice Italy. “An example is the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), Hirsi Jamaa and Others v. Natalino Ronzitti, an international law expert and scientific adviser to the Instituto Affari Internazionali, emphasizes this paper. According to this decision of the ECHR, Italy violated the European Convention on Human Rights by extraditing 24 people from Somalia and Eritrea to Libya. 2009. They also underlined jurists such as Fulvio Vassallo Paleologo, who are experts in immigration issues in this sense, which sets a precedent. international conventions and European regulations apply hierarchically In the application of Italian domestic measures.

How were immigrants chosen?

According to the Meloni Government, in the operations carried out so far, the Italian authorities have allowed landing minors, families, pregnant women and shipwrecked people with humanitarian needs. But Giuditta Pini, a former MP from the Democratic Party (PD), said the immigrants were chosen by “doctors” who boarded humanitarian ships and selected the immigrants.according to their physical appearance, not according to its documentation”. “This is illegal,” thought Pini. The Italian-Ivorian MP Aboubakar Soumahoro also condemned the authorities’ lack of cultural mediators during their operations. However, the excluded migrants have not been able to present their political asylum claims for the time being.

What international laws bind Italy?

Providing assistance to those in danger of dying at sea is an obligation under International Law.especially with the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (CONVEMAR Convention), the 1974 International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS Convention) and the International Search and Sea Rescue Convention (SAR Convention) 1979.

More specifically, according to article 2 of the annex to the SAR Convention, revised in 2000, “rescue” should be understood as an operation that includes: transfer to a “safe place”. This indicates that the rescued cannot be transported to a port in a country where there is an ongoing conflict, with the exception of Libya, for example. It is therefore unclear where the NGO ships currently in Sicily should go.

Are there any other deals to consider?

Yes, including the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the 1984 Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. prohibiting sending people back to areas where their lives would be in danger. However, the answer is more complex than it seems, as there is also the Palermo Protocol Against Human Trafficking, which came into force in 2003 and whose purpose is to combat human traffickers.

“The real problem, anyway, is that these are laws written to deal with very different contexts from what is available,” says Ronzitti. In fact, it is clear that Italy intends to open the Dublin Agreement, which stipulates that immigrants make their applications in the country they first visited, for discussion. Second, a claim that southern European countries have long shared.

How will it end?

According to analysts, the main purpose is to move the discussion to the political arena. In fact, even if the Meloni Executive is not successful in the legal field in its fight against NGOs, its action is already causing immigration to be a source of conflict once again on the political agenda in Italy and the European Union. . The reasons are many. For example, they refer to the fact that the new Immigration Pact proposals presented in 2020 “do not convincingly confront the problem of solidarity,” according to Mario Savino, professor of administrative law at the University of Tuscia. .