Policing migration in the Mediterranean

Abstract

Over recent years, there has been growing concern in European countries with irregular migration and other – supposedly related – transnational challenges from across the Mediterranean, which have come to be seen both as a security risk as well as a humanitarian challenge. In response, European countries have been stepping up their efforts to police their Mediterranean borders. This has involved both an increasing militarization of migration control in the Mediterranean, in the sense of the deployment of semi-military and military forces and hardware in the prevention of migration by sea, and an intensification of law enforcement co-operation between the countries north and south of the Mediterranean. This article discusses the evolution of these policing activities in and across the Mediterranean, as well as some of its perverse side effects, such as the growing involvement of human smugglers, and the diversion of the migratory flows towards other, usually further and more dangerous, routes across the Mediterranean sea.