Interview with Allison West
Senior Legal Advisor at European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR)
Founded in 2007, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) is an independent, non-profit organization based in Berlin dedicated to making injustice visible and enforcing human rights worldwide. Together with affected communities and partners around the globe, ECCHR uses legal means to challenge corporate exploitation, fortressed borders, and impunity for grave international crimes.
What are ECCHR’s main concerns regarding Europe’s current approach to migration and border control, and how do you work to address them?
Instead of creating safe, legal pathways to protection, the EU and Member States employ deterrence, exclusion, and externalization. These practices rely on arbitrary and irregular handling of people on the move, facilitating secret detentions, torture and ill-treatment, expulsions, and a complete denial of access to legal safeguards. In the Central Mediterranean, Libyan and European actors cooperate to capture those fleeing by sea and systematically return them to arbitrary detention under conditions that amount to crimes against humanity.
As an organization that focuses on the law’s role as both a tool of repression and resistance, we work closely with survivors and movements to legally challenge Europe’s attempts to deny access to rights and render people rightless. By rigorously analyzing abuses/violations at borders, strategically litigating in multiple legal forums, and collaborating transnationally, we at ECCHR strive to hold those who benefit from these illegal practices to account – be it states, companies, or high-ranking individuals in governmental or non-governmental entities like Frontex.
Can you describe some examples of what legal tools and practices you use?
One focus of our work is supporting individuals who have experienced pushbacks and border violence in filing complaints before human rights bodies like the European Court of Human Rights and different treaty bodies of the United Nations (UN). These cases aim to hold states accountable for these systematic pushback policies and challenge impunity for recurring violations at Europe’s borders. We have also monitored trials of members of the Civil Fleet and advocated for the rights of human rights defenders operating on the Mediterranean, including through legal interventions.
Another one of our strategies is to fight pullbacks and associated abuses in the Central Mediterranean utilizing international criminal law (ICL), for instance at the International Criminal Court (ICC) or in national courts under the principle of universal jurisdiction. These efforts seek accountability for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. By focusing on individual criminal responsibility rather than states, this approach enables cases against high-ranking officials, including those from EU Member States and agencies like Frontex, which is, by design, difficult to litigate against as an entity. The ICL category of crimes against humanity also emphasizes the gravity and structural context of these crimes, allowing prosecutions to expose how systems of abuse function and how EU and Member State policies connect to the actions of individuals.
You have filed two major complaints to the International Criminal Court related to crimes against humanity perpetrated against migrants and refugees in Libya and the Central Mediterranean. What are their status and your expectations?
ECCHR has submitted two Article 15 communications to the ICC as part of its ongoing investigation into the Situation in Libya. Article 15 communications allow any individual, State, or non-governmental organization to send information on alleged crimes within the jurisdiction of the ICC to the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP). It’s then up to the ICC Prosecutor to decide which cases to pursue by applying for arrest warrants of alleged perpetrators, which if granted often remain under seal.
We made our first Libya-related ICC submission in 2021, together with Lawyers for Justice in Libya and the International Federation for Human Rights. It highlighted the commission of unspeakable violence and abuse against people on the move in Libya, particularly in detention settings, as part of a discernible system of migrant exploitation that amounts, we argue, to the commission of crimes against humanity and possible war crimes. It included in-depth witness testimony from 14 survivors and called on the ICC prosecutor to open an investigation into the responsibility of individuals within Libyan state authorities as well as non-state armed groups and militias.
Our 2022 submission detailed how European and Libyan actors cooperate to capture migrants and refugees at sea and forcibly return them to Libyan detention and the system of abuse and exploitation outlined in our 2021 ICC filing. It showed how European actors have bolstered the so-called Libyan Coast Guard with funding, training, and equipment, while actively participating in apprehensions at sea by sharing boat locations. We argued that this material support formalized through agreements demonstrates a common plan resulting in crimes against humanity. We named 24 individuals, including 16 high-level EU and Member State officials as alleged co-perpetrators and urged the ICC Prosecutor to include interceptions at sea and European actors in its investigation. This submission would not have been possible without evidence from sea rescue and civil society organizations.
The ICC’s investigation into the Situation in Libya is ongoing. We know that the OTP is looking into crimes against people on the move and gathering evidence, including survivor testimony. While we hope this leads to concrete cases, there have been major setbacks—most recently Italy’s failure to comply with an ICC arrest warrant, allowing Osama Elmasry Njeem, wanted for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes committed at Tripoli’s Mitiga Prison, to be flown back to Libya on an Italian state aircraft. This incident highlights Libyan-European ties and the need for deeper ICC scrutiny of the role and legal responsibility of European actors. As this may be the final year of the Libya investigation, we urge the Court to take firm action to bring perpetrators, both Libyan and European, to justice.
Picture: ECCHR
In October 2024 you co-organized a public event and workshops with Refugees in Libya. What motivated this collaboration and how do you view partnerships with self-organized groups like RiL?
Our cooperation with RiL began in 2023 when we had the honor to host RiL co-founder David Yambio as a fellow at ECCHR. Throughout his fellowship, we explored avenues for legal accountability and began conducting outreach to survivors interested in legal action. In October 2024 we co-organized the event “From Tripoli to Berlin.” Our motivation was to bring together different groups, including lawyers, survivors, activists, and members of the Civil Fleet, to think through possibilities and challenges to advance our work. We thought it was a great success! Cooperating with a broad network of actors is essential to our work, as we know law is only one tool in the fight for justice. Our cooperation with RiL, a survivor-led network that is unrelenting in its advocacy and well-connected to what is happening on the ground in Libya and Tunisia, is incredibly important. As our model of lawyering strives to be survivor- and movement-led, we deeply value RiL’s expertise in determining strategic legal interventions and hope to continue our cooperation to amplify the aims and voices of survivors in the fight against impunity.
Back to the legal level: what is the biggest challenge in your work in courts?
At the ICC, the recent debacle with Italy’s release of wanted Libyan actor Osama Elmasry Njeem demonstrates some of the challenges in apprehending suspects and ensuring cooperation of States with the ICC. The failure to transfer Njeem to the Hague had devastating effects for both the Libya investigation and for survivors seeking justice. Our ECCHR colleague and Italian lawyer Chantal Meloni has written a great overview of the incident here. Other key challenges with the ICC include the length of investigations and trials, jurisdictional hurdles, resource limitations, and lack of transparency in decision-making. However, we believe we must continue to support these institutions while applying pressure for them to meet our demands.
From the outside we see a labyrinth of legal levels and options: at the national, EU, and international levels. Do you favor certain legal institutions? If so, why?
At ECCHR, we don’t favor one legal institution but seek the most effective venue for each case and the aims of the survivors/groups pursuing it. While there are many legal options for addressing injustices at borders, our work on abuses against people on the move in Libya and the Mediterranean has primarily focused on the ICC for several reasons. Domestic prosecutions in Libya and Europe have largely failed to address the systematic nature of these crimes or hold high-level perpetrators accountable. Given the role of high-level actors and the structural dimension of these abuses, the ICC is uniquely positioned to investigate and prosecute those most responsible.
While some EU Member State judiciaries are investigating and prosecuting abuses against people on the move, they often focus narrowly on trafficking, overlooking the broader context of crimes against humanity. Worse, smuggling and trafficking laws are frequently misused to criminalize people on the move and those in solidarity with them, rather than holding European actors accountable for designing and implementing policies and practices known to enable and facilitate international crimes. Since national judiciaries overwhelmingly fail to examine the legal responsibility of high-ranking EU and Member State officials, an ICC investigation remains essential to break the cycle of impunity. At the same time, our approach complements the work of other lawyers and groups mounting legal challenges in other forums, and we recognize the importance of a multi-pronged strategy in the fight for justice.
How strong is your coordination and cooperation with other NGOs and legal actors coming from civil society? Is it useful to have a variety of approaches and organizations?
We see our legal work as driven by cooperation with survivors, affected communities, and partner organizations. The law can be a powerful tool in struggles for justice but it must be approached strategically and in service of those directly affected. We have already built invaluable relationships with RiL and other survivors, members of the Civil Fleet, other lawyers and legal organizations, and solidarity groups supporting people on the move. Given the current political climate, we see it as crucial to further strengthen and expand these connections to enhance collective efforts in challenging rightlessness and border violence.
Activists have long sought a kind of archive of successful court cases and best legal practices in the area of refugee and migrant rights. Is it feasible and who could do it?
A database compiling lessons from legal cases on the rights of people on the move across different national, regional, and international tribunals would be highly valuable. Given the research-intensive nature of such a project, it would likely be best led by a university or research institution. We would gladly contribute insights from our casework and see great potential in such a resource.
What impact do rising right-wing policies and increasing racism have on legal struggles for migrant rights?
An increasingly hostile environment and racist, dehumanizing rhetoric in politics have enabled policies focused on further criminalizing people on the move and those who support them, rather than seeking to protect human rights and the rule of law. The reforms of the Common European Asylum System, which weaken the rights of those who reach Europe and will make it even more difficult to access legal support, are a prime example. Some courts have normalized violent deterrence measures at Europe’s borders with judgments that draw on the same logic and narratives, effectively restricting the rights of people on the move. This makes legal efforts all the more challenging, but all the more urgent, going forward.
Thanks Allison for this interview!
Website – https://www.ecchr.eu
