“We must not accept that the Mediterranean Sea remains a cemetery of broken lives and broken hope,” said Roberta Metsola, President of the European Parliament. Yet EU policies speak otherwise as the EU exercises control over who enters Europe and increasingly dictates who never gets to arrive. Europe’s worsening migration crisis is defined by the high number of deaths: over 2,452 people died in the Mediterranean in 2024 while trying to reach Europe, according to IOM data. However, we cannot forget that the cause of loss of these lives wasn’t merely a “deflated boat’’ or “rough waves’’ but explicitly well-conceived strategies by European countries and their North African allies.
Despite the recency of Europe’s ongoing refugee crisis and the contemporary challenges posed by the influx of refugees, international law has long imposed an obligation of protection and compassion towards those at sea. Since 1951, Article 33 of the United Nations Refugee Convention has enshrined the principle of non-refoulement, which affirms that states shall not “expel or return a refugee in any manner whatsoever” to territories where their life or freedom would be threatened. Accordingly, under international law, the 149 states, including all EU member states that are parties to the Refugee Convention, cannot transfer refugees who arrive by boat back to the territories from which they are fleeing when such return would place their human rights at risk.
Moreover, a positive duty by states to exercise a level of ‘compassion’ toward migrant and refugee vessels in distress is enshrined in the UN’s Convention on the Law and Seas. Article 98(1) establishes a “duty to render assistance to any person found at sea in danger.” The use of the phrase “any person” suggests that states are obligated to protect not merely their own citizens, but also refugees who are in distress within waters defined as their Search and Rescue Zone (SAR).
While past reports on the criminalization of NGOs attempting to rescue migrant ships at sea and countries blatantly ignoring distress calls demonstrate instances of direct violations of the principle of non-refoulement, states are increasingly adopting strategies to indirectly circumvent their obligations under international law. Accordingly, the following article posits how three tactics – the three S’s of stalling, slashing, and signalling — are progressively being adopted by EU states to sidestep their obligations under the aforementioned international treaties.
Firstly, through the tactic of stalling, the EU ensures that boats carrying migrants and refugees never leave the shores of Northern Africa, to avoid having to conduct search and rescue operations to begin with. This is exemplified through the 2024 EU deal with Mauritania, where the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, pledged 210 million euros to crack down and deter refugees from departing to the shores of the Canary Islands.
In addition, through slashing search and rescue budgets and the funding of human rights groups and NGOs aimed at conducting rescue operations, states are limiting their capacity to assist those in distress. Malta has witnessed a reduction of rescue operations since 2015; meanwhile, in 2025, Germany introduced a policy not simply to reduce, but to outright end funding to NGOs performing search and rescue missions in the Mediterranean Sea. The loss of 2 million euros comes in the wake of Chancellor Merz’s harsher stance on immigration to “control Germany’s borders”. Hence, without having to directly criminalize NGOs, states can still indirectly avoid their commitments under international law by limiting the capacity of their civil societies to take action.
Finally, through signalling, EU member states can alert the coastguards of states in Northern Africa to intercept and detain refugee ships approaching their shores. Such is evidenced by the EU’s continuous funds to the Libyan coastguard via its European Union Trust Fund, which enabled Libya to receive half a billion euros to capture illegal migration. This tactic is also institutionalized through Frontex, the EU’s Coast Guard Agency, which, according to the Council of Europe, has shared the location of migrant boats with the Libyan Coast Guard over 2,000 times in the last 3 years. Evidently, this tactic ensures that even if the first tactic of stalling, or preventing ships from departing, does not work, the EU can prevent them from reaching its shores.
Hence, these three strategies illuminate the calculated and deliberate ways that states can circumvent international law without outright violating it. Notably, a violation of the principle of non-refoulement would require that states themselves directly transfer or expel those fleeing danger back to territories posing human rights violations. Yet, through alerting the Libyan Coastguard, which conducts the transfers of boats back to Libya, states indirectly aid refoulement. Furthermore, by preventing the ships from leaving for Europe in the first place, the EU reduces its need to perform search and rescue operations to begin with.
Across the EU, the “three S’s” (stalling, slashing, signalling) have devastating human-rights consequences, ones that often feel too brutal to be captured simply by words. However, their core effects remain clear: they push Europe’s responsibilities outward, keeping suffering out of sight and off European shores. In doing so, they shape public perception, making it seem as if the crisis is only the “fault” of Africa or of migrants themselves, when in reality Europe plays a central role, but through quieter and less visible mechanisms that remain unknown to most people.
First, stalling has harsh human-rights consequences because it prevents people from ever reaching a space where legal protection can be claimed, trapping them in transit countries where they are often abused and exploited. A clear example is the EU–Tunisia Memorandum of Understanding (2023), which deepened cooperation on migration control and border enforcement. Yet this “prevention-first” approach has been heavily criticised because it coincided with reports of migrants being violently targeted, pushed into remote border zones, and denied basic safeguards. This incident, among many other EU-Northern African deals raise serious concerns about respect for human life and dignity.
Slashing search-and-rescue capacity directly affects the right to life, because it makes preventable deaths at sea more likely. When states restrict or weaken NGO rescues, the “gap” is not magically filled by governments, and distress cases are more likely to go unanswered. One striking example is Italy’s 2017 “Code of Conduct” introduced with EU backing, which imposed rules and constraints on rescue NGOs operating offshore Libya. UN human rights experts warned at the time that such measures could reduce NGOs’ ability to carry out life-saving work and lead to more deaths, meaning that loss of life could become foreseeable and preventable. The consequence is a form of policy-by-absence: rather than openly refusing rescue, authorities make rescue harder, leaving migrants exposed to drowning and extreme suffering at sea.
Signalling has deep human-rights impacts because it enables interceptions and forced returns to places where migrants may face detention, violence, and denial of asylum access. A well-documented example is Frontex’s role in surveillance: investigations show the agency has repeatedly shared boat locations with the Libyan Coast Guard, which then intercepts migrants and returns them to Libya. In one major investigation, Frontex was found to have shared boat locations over 2,000 times in three years, despite evidence of violent and abusive interceptions. Human Rights Watch has also warned that aerial surveillance without immediate rescue capacity can facilitate capture rather than protection. The result is that even when migrants manage to flee, they can be redirected back into harm through coordination that keeps EU states formally at a distance while still shaping the outcome.
Together, these three tactics show that Europe’s border strategy is no longer only about controlling entry, but about controlling responsibility. By stalling departures, slashing rescue capacity, and signalling interceptions, EU states reduce arrivals while increasing migrants’ exposure to death at sea, detention, abuse, and blocked access to asylum. In practice, the “three S’s” allow states to distance themselves from direct legal liability, yet still shape outcomes that undermine the very human-rights principles Europe claims to defend.
While European leaders condemn the sea becoming a “cemetery of broken lives”, the reality is that EU migration governance increasingly relies on tactics that undermine such a promise.
By preventing departures before they happen, weakening the actors that save lives, and enabling interceptions that return people to abuse, more remain trapped in limbo, more deaths occur at sea, and more forced returns to dangerous circumstances without access to asylum.
Ultimately, if Europe continues to outsource and obscure its obligations under international law, it risks transforming legal commitments like non-refoulement and the duty to rescue into empty principles, honoured in speeches but abandoned in practice. Like a vessel in the vast blue sea, the EU must ensure that its ship of solidarity does not drown, but like the tide, rises back up.
This article was first published as part of the Sundial Press printed edition in Winter 2026
Photo Credit: BBC News 2016 reporting on deadly capsizing of a migrant boat in the Mediterranean
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