No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
Migrant Smuggling by Sea: Tackling Practical Problems by Applying a High-level Inter-agency Approach
Abstract
Huge disparities in wealth across the world, the denial of fundamental rights in some countries and natural disasters have resulted in broad population movements, also by sea. The most famous examples are without a doubt the flow of Vietnamese boat people in the late 1970s and the 2001 incident with the MV Tampa – a ship carrying over 400 migrants – that caused a dispute between Indonesia and Australia. But also more recently, as a result of the Arab Spring, maritime migration came into the picture as hundreds of people died in the Mediterranean trying to reach Europe in 2011. However, as a sea journey is often difficult and dangerous, migrants request the help of smugglers to reach their destination. The first part of this paper will deal with the question why migrant smuggling is regarded as a maritime safety and a maritime security problem. To deal with this problem, States took several initiatives on both the international and the regional level to combat smuggling. These initiatives will be dealt with in the second and in the third part of this paper. In a fourth part we will take a look at some of the problems that may arise in applying these initiatives in practice. Finally, in the last part, some suggestions will be made to improve the legal framework by proposing a high-level inter-agency approach.
... Generally, however, the achievement of adequate safety standards in fishing probably is hampered by the fact that it is often carried out under sub-standard (if not illegal) conditions, and, because of that, enforcement of existing laws can be very weak (Petursdottir et al. 2001). For instance, the number of contracting parties to the treaties increasing safety standards for vessels and training for fishermen is substantially lower than for SOLAS and STCW. 2 By contrast, as far as salvage of ships is concerned, in many instances, and not only because of the 1989 Salvage Convention, salvage has transformed into a business or at least into a service that is offered against a reward (Parent 2006, 91;Kilpatrick and Smith 2016;Coppens 2013). ...
Search and rescue (SAR) at sea has been always carried out under principles of the customary law of the sea obliging vessels and states to help persons whose ships are in distress at sea. International treaties define more detailed conditions and obligations to provide adequate SAR. The rationale of all these principles and rules, as well as of the associated duties affecting the obliged persons/states to carry out and organize SAR activities, was that of increasing safety at sea and taking care of seafarers and fishermen (or passengers on board vessels) who were at sea mainly for the purpose of work.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.