With the support of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Paris France | Italy, ASGI has drafted the Practical Guide to Strategic Litigation against Pushbacks in the Mediterranean and for the Right of Entry, with the aim of making the strategies tested in recent years accessible and replicable.
Addressed to civil society organisations, legal practitioners, and university legal clinics, the Guide is a working tool for developing effective instruments to counter illegal pushbacks in the Central Mediterranean.
Pushbacks represent one of the cornerstone tools of current migration management policies. Through externalisation policies promoted by the European Union and its Member States, multiple strategies have been tested in recent years to block people on the move and return them to countries of origin, third countries, or countries of previous transit, by circumventing or evading the rules established to protect the fundamental rights of those pushed back. In particular, over the last fifteen years, mechanisms for the delegation of pushbacks have developed, aimed at distancing responsibility for unlawful conduct from the Italian authorities.
The Guide presents one of the legal tools to counter these violations: the development of litigation aimed at obtaining entry visas for the purpose of applying for protection, in response to the unlawful conduct of Italian or European authorities in carrying out pushbacks.
Litigation to obtain entry visas is particularly significant as a tool to challenge the policies of delegating pushbacks by the Italian authorities. The possibility of requesting and obtaining, through litigation, the issuance of an entry visa and thus undertaking a safe journey to Italy represents an act of great strength, both legally and symbolically: it exposes the abnormal and excessive nature of the authorities’ actions, recognises and assigns responsibility, and opens the way to alternative solutions.
After a brief theoretical introduction, the Guide analyses three concrete cases and the jurisprudential developments arising from the litigation. The presentation of the cases makes it possible to share a methodology of intervention, the tools used, and the main critical issues encountered.
Multiplying these initiatives is essential to strengthen their impact and to foster a shift towards policies of rescue and the opening of borders. We hope that this Guide will serve as a useful tool for disseminating these forms of litigation and the methodologies through which they are developed.
