Today, the United Nations enters a new chapter in its military history. It will discuss a new Security Council resolution that seeks authorisation for a mission to bomb boats used by human traffickers and smugglers in the Libyan waters of the Mediterranean. If it passes, which it likely will, overnight, militarism will be sanctioned as the default policy response to unwanted migration to Europe.
The proposed military mission would be led by Italy and involve some 10 EU states including Britain, France and Spain. The resolution has been drawn up by Britain in response to unprecedented refugee flows from the North of Africa which have been coupled with a huge death toll due to the curtailing of search and rescue operations. There is no denying that some kind of action is necessary to save lives: the stretch of water long known as Europe’s graveyard has become a bleeding blot on our conscience in recent months, with over 1,600 deaths alone this year.
Rather than learning the lessons of recent history, and of heading calls from organisations such as Save the Children to fully and systematically ‘restart the rescue’, however, EU member states have opted for militarism as their primary solution to the ‘migrant crisis’. In their recent analysis of the EU plan for action, lawyers Mariagiulia Giuffre and Cathryn Costello conclude that acknowledgement of responsibility is nowhere to be seen.
