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Resolution 1999 (2014) Final version
The “left-to-die boat”: actions and reactions
1. The Parliamentary Assembly refers
to its Resolution 1872
(2012) “Lives lost in the Mediterranean Sea: Who is responsible?”,
which was adopted after a thorough investigation into the responsibilities
of those who could have gone to the rescue of 72 people on board
a small rubber dinghy, later known as the “left-to-die boat”, which
set off towards Europe on 26 March 2011 and from which only nine
people survived.
2. Unfortunately, the catalogue of lives lost at sea did not
end with this incident. More recently, in October 2013, two vessels
capsized within sight of the coast of Lampedusa, leading to the
loss of over 400 lives. Again, in May 2014, two shipwrecks resulted
in the deaths of dozens of people with hundreds missing. These catastrophes
once again revealed the crucial need for Europe and the rest of
the world to fill in the gaps in the legal framework, policies and
practices of rescue at sea.
3. The Assembly acknowledges that important efforts have been
made by member States, Italy in particular, to save more lives at
sea. However, a number of concerns still remain, including failures
to co-operate, to define and admit responsibility, and also to learn
lessons. The left-to-die boat incident clearly highlighted the urgent
need to guarantee fundamental rights, while respecting the legitimate
security imperatives of border controls.
4. The Assembly therefore wants to reinforce its previous recommendations
and encourage the adoption of further measures to prevent communication
and responsibility gaps when it comes to saving the lives of people
in distress in the future.
5. With a view to applying zero tolerance towards lives lost
at sea, the Assembly further recommends that member States:
5.1. with regard to rescue at sea
and lives lost:
5.1.1. adopt clear, binding and enforceable
common standards with regard to search and rescue operations, including
disembarkation, fully consistent with international maritime law
and international human rights and refugee law obligations;
5.1.2. work towards extending the recently adopted rules for
the surveillance of the European Union external sea borders, in
the context of the operations of the European Agency for the Management
of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member
States of the European Union (Frontex), to national operations outside
the framework of Frontex operations;
5.1.3. commit to improving the recording and identification of
migrants who die or disappear at sea, and ensure that survivors
and relatives of the victims have prompt access to information about
them;
5.1.4. ensure family links are maintained or restored following
rescue operations;
5.1.5. commit to swiftly, independently and thoroughly investigating
any reported failures to rescue people at sea and to ensuring accountability;
5.1.6. commit to assisting coastal States to increase resources
for search and rescue operations;
5.2. with regard to criminalisation of irregular migration:
5.2.1. abolish factors which dissuade private vessels from carrying
out rescues, by ensuring that the people rescued will be allowed
to land quickly and by ending the threat of prosecution on charges
of aiding and abetting irregular immigration which give rise to
moral and financial damages;
5.2.2. urge shipmasters and fishermen to comply with their obligations
under international law to assist and report to the relevant authorities
of the member States any migrant boats in distress;
5.2.3. ensure financial compensation for shipmasters and fishermen
for possible financial losses incurred as a result of rescue operations;
5.3. with regard to push-back practices:
5.3.1. end
all push-back practices and ensure that practices of rescue at sea
are compliant with the right to seek asylum and the right to be
protected against refoulement;
5.3.2. ensure the credibility of any judicial probe or investigation
into push-back incidents by guaranteeing their independence, impartiality
and transparency;
5.3.3. publicly condemn any occurrence of summary removals or
collective expulsions which come to their attention and ensure accountability
for any such incident;
5.3.4. ensure, in particular, that any accelerated asylum procedures
and the assessment of personal circumstances in the context of search
and rescue operations respect a person’s right to be protected from refoulement, in line with the 2009
Council of Europe Guidelines on human rights protection in the context
of accelerated asylum procedures; ensure that all those intercepted
have access to individual procedures to seek international protection
or highlight other needs where protection is concerned, and have
access to an effective remedy against any decision regarding return;
5.3.5. ensure that any bilateral readmission agreement is drafted
and implemented in a manner fully consistent with international
human rights and refugee law standards and includes effective safeguards
of human rights and access to a fair and proper individual assessment;
5.4. with regard to the left-to-die boat incident:
5.4.1. fully co-operate to find answers to the outstanding questions,
by informing the rapporteur swiftly and adequately about the location
of their vessels during the time the boat in question was drifting
in search of help, and the messages their vessels received;
5.4.2. grant the right to residence for the survivors whose applications
for asylum or residence on humanitarian grounds are still pending;
5.5. show further solidarity with third countries by giving
more refugees access to resettlement or temporary reception programmes,
and guarantee safe access to protection.
6. With a view to encouraging the creation of safe legal migration
channels and preventing irregular migrants, asylum seekers and refugees
from undertaking hazardous journeys to Europe, and to sharing the responsibility
for asylum seekers inside the European Union, the Assembly recommends
that the European Union:
6.1. encourage
its member States to increase resettlement quotas for persons in
need of international protection and adopt a common approach to
humanitarian visas; explore further possibilities for protected
entries and migration routes enabling migrants to reach Europe in
a regular manner;
6.2. take steps to further harmonise the common asylum standards
and procedures in the European Union, by, for example, considering
a joint processing of asylum applications and the creation of a uniform
asylum status; explore further possibilities to reinforce solidarity
for asylum seekers and refugees within the European Union;
6.3. strengthen regional protection programmes and ensure their
sustainability through sufficient funding; support neighbouring
countries in improving their asylum and protection systems through mobility
partnerships, and make further co-operation on migration and border
control dependent on a sufficient level of protection for asylum
seekers in these countries;
6.4. ensure that Frontex makes the protection of fundamental
rights a priority of its joint operations, and in particular seeks
the ability – which is still lacking in the recently adopted regulation
– to apply the rules (on search and rescue, disembarkation and non-refoulement) to migrant boats
within the territorial waters of third States which clearly cannot
meet their international obligations regarding search and rescue
at sea or uphold the rights of irregular migrants, asylum seekers
and refugees;
6.5. ensure that Frontex establishes an effective mechanism
for individual complaints of violations of fundamental rights, in
order to improve its accountability;
6.6. ensure that the mechanism of the European border surveillance
system (EUROSUR) contributes to protecting and saving lives at the
European Union’s external borders;
6.7. adopt measures to prohibit penal sanctions on private
vessels carrying out search and rescue operations and to compensate
them when they face economic loss after engaging in rescue operations;
6.8. set up a proper system of data collection concerning the
mortal remains of people who lose their lives in the Mediterranean
and make it swiftly accessible to relatives.
7. The Assembly recommends that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO):
7.1. take into account
possible movements of people in need of international protection
in all NATO operations and reach agreements with all countries concerned
to ensure that these people are cared for;
7.2. ensure that all NATO assets are equipped with Global Maritime
Distress and Safety Systems (GMDSS), in any of its versions, and
have the means to receive Hydrolant distress messages;
7.3. publish the results of the lessons-learned process in
which it has been examining ways to strengthen information sharing
and procedures related to search and rescue at sea during NATO-led operations.
8. The Assembly believes that the International Maritime Organization
(IMO) should play a role in promoting a common and effective application
of the legal framework of rescue at sea, as different approaches still
today create excessive delays and failures to rescue people in distress
at sea. To this end, it recommends that the IMO:
8.1. step up its efforts with a view
to developing a regional memorandum of understanding on procedures
to facilitate the co-ordination of search and rescue operations
and the disembarkation of persons rescued in the Mediterranean Sea;
8.2. promote new consultations for amending and implementing
the current legal framework, and, in particular, the IMO conventions,
with clearer and stricter rules and definitions;
8.3. amend the International Convention for the Safety of Life
at Sea (SOLAS) to expressly provide that exemptions generally applying
to ships of war and troopships do not apply to search and rescue equipment
and devices essential to transmitting and receiving distress signals
and for communicating during search and rescue operations.