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“Evaporating Mediterranean: The Fate of Migrants in a Shrinking Sea Commons”

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African Migrants and the Refugee Crisis

Abstract

Escaping privation and violence now prompt thousands of migrants and refugees to attempt to cross the Mediterranean Sea waters from North Africa to the relative safety and prosperity of southern Europe. Beyond the deadly peril of their journeys, they face the sophisticated coercive and ideological bureaucratic apparatuses deployed to discourage their movement. The tension between the constraints of international and supranational law together buttressed by humanitarian moral intuition on the one hand and virulent xenophobia and racism on the other have resulted in the externalization of border control across the Mediterranean Sea and immediate Eastern Atlantic. The practical result is to extend the effective territorial sovereignty of Italy and Spain, and with it the territorial sovereignty of the European Union. The Mediterranean Sea is drying up as a territorial commons, a fate likely to befall other bodies of water like the South China Sea and Arctic Sea.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Flahaux and De Hass, “African Migration,” 22.

  2. 2.

    Ibid, 2, 19.

  3. 3.

    Rutz, “From Failing States to Migration,” 127.

  4. 4.

    Welzer, Climate Wars, 101–102.

  5. 5.

    Neslen, “Climate Change ‘Cause of Most Under-Reported Humanitarian Crises’.”

  6. 6.

    Gerretson, “How Climate Change is Fueling Extremism.”

  7. 7.

    Welzer, Climate Wars, 35–36; Burke, et al.

  8. 8.

    Hirschman, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty, 106–107.

  9. 9.

    Adelman, Pariah.

  10. 10.

    Chorin, Exit the Colonel, 138.

  11. 11.

    Hickman, “Cue Taking and the Distribution of Japanese Bilateral ODA Among African States.”

  12. 12.

    Carbone and Coralluzo, “The Politics of Italy’s Foreign Policy in the Mediterranean,” 433–434.

  13. 13.

    Ronzitti, “The Treaty of Friendship,” 130.

  14. 14.

    Ibid, 434.

  15. 15.

    Gattinara, “The ‘Refugee Crisis’ in Italy as a Crisis of Legitimacy,” 321.

  16. 16.

    Coticchia and Davidson, Italian Foreign Policy during Matteo Renzi’s Government, 30–33.

  17. 17.

    Ibid, 320; Kasperak and Schmidt-Sembdner, “Renationalization and Spaces of Migration,” 211.

  18. 18.

    Casert, “Italy, Libya Deal on Migration Lays Groundwork for UE Summit.”

  19. 19.

    Ibid.

  20. 20.

    Franzi and Dadron, 51, 80–8.

  21. 21.

    Povoledo and Pianigiani, “Rescue Ship Poses New Test for Italy’s Hard-Line Migrant Policies.”

  22. 22.

    Zardo and Cavatorta, “Friends Will Be Friends?” 14.

  23. 23.

    Godeneau and López-Sala, “Multi-Layered Deterrence and Technology in Spanish Maritime Management,” 157–159.

  24. 24.

    Ibid, 164.

  25. 25.

    Fitzgerald, Refuge Beyond Reach, 183.

  26. 26.

    Akkerman, Expanding the Fortress, 62.

  27. 27.

    Plaut, “Why Migrant Detention Centers in Libya Won’t Be Closed.”

  28. 28.

    The Refugee Convention.

  29. 29.

    United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

  30. 30.

    Novick, The Holocaust in American Life, 49–52.

  31. 31.

    Stewart, The Royal Navy and the Palestine Patrol, 69–83, 137–145.

  32. 32.

    Ibid, 160–162.

  33. 33.

    Ibid, 172–173.

  34. 34.

    Ibid, 108–109.

  35. 35.

    Horne, A Savage War of Peace, 533.

  36. 36.

    Farmbry, Migration and Xenophobia, 35–37.

  37. 37.

    Hickman, Selling Guantánamo, 56–57.

  38. 38.

    European Union, Charter of Fundamental Rights

  39. 39.

    European Court of Human Rights, Guide to Article 4 of Protocol 4.

  40. 40.

    Horowitz, “Widespread Anti-Immigrant Sentiment in Italy.”

  41. 41.

    Ibid.

  42. 42.

    Ibid.

  43. 43.

    Smith, “37% of Britons Say Immigration Has Meant That Where They Live Doesn’t Feel Like Home Anymore.”

  44. 44.

    Franzi and Madron, Matteo Salvini, 41–42.

  45. 45.

    Heywood, The Government and Politics of Spain, 18.

  46. 46.

    Fekete, A Suitable Enemy, 27.

  47. 47.

    Cornelisse, “Immigration Detention and the Territoriality of Universal Rights,” 120.

  48. 48.

    Flahaux and De Haas, “African Migration,” 19.

  49. 49.

    Karakayali and Rigo, “Mapping the European Space of Circulation,” 124–125.

  50. 50.

    Krasner, Sovereignty, 8–25.

  51. 51.

    European Court of Human Rights, Guide to Article 4 of Protocol 4.

  52. 52.

    Ibid.

  53. 53.

    European Court of Human Rights. “Hirsi Jamaa and Others v Italy.”

  54. 54.

    Ibid.

  55. 55.

    Merill, Black Spaces, 160–161.

  56. 56.

    Ibid.

  57. 57.

    Ibid.

  58. 58.

    Ibid, Plaut.

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Correspondence to John Hickman .

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Hickman, J. (2021). “Evaporating Mediterranean: The Fate of Migrants in a Shrinking Sea Commons”. In: Abegunrin, O., Abidde, S.O. (eds) African Migrants and the Refugee Crisis. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56642-5_12

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