Frontex' Sea Operations: between Security and Human Rights
The European Union currently experiences unprecedented high numbers of asylum seekers arriving at its external borders. This year alone around 2 000 migrants have drowned in the Mediterranean. Due to these high numbers European border management practices and the treatment of asylum seekers have become subject to international criticism. Therefore, this research seeks to assess the extent to which Frontex' performance in the EU's external border management is consistent with the right to seek asylum. It is argued that asylum policy in the EU is embedded in a security framework that impedes a migration and asylum policy that emphasizes the security needs of people, and not of nation states. It is further asserted, that Frontex lacks the mandate to facilitate more proactive respect of human rights and humanitarian reasons are utilized to justify the deployment of security strategies. As a consequence, humanitarian questions are addressed by security strategies, placing national security interests at the heart of European asylum policy, instead of humanitarian concerns.