Migration and Border Violence

Migration is the human rights challenge of our time and involves both humanitarian issues and political rights.

Migrants, asylum seekers and refugees are vulnerable individuals exposed to fundamental abuses of human rights. They are also struggling against the structures of inequality that compel them to migrate. Our legal strategies challenge the fast-changing policies that result in various forms of violence being inflicted on this vulnerable population.

We use a variety of innovative legal methods, ranging from human rights and refugee law, to international criminal law, to challenge the many forms of violence against the perpetrators of these violations.

The mass killing of civilians by drowning, pushing survivors back to camps they fled from, preventing their disembarkation at safe ports are not only human rights violations; they are crimes for which GLAN will continue to pursue accountability.

Omer Shatz, GLAN Legal Adviser,

Sciences Po and Yale Law School

OUR ACTIVITIES

ITALY & LIBYA

PRIVATISED ABUSE

GLAN has filed a complaint to the UN Human Rights Committee on behalf of an individual whose journey from Libya was intercepted in the high seas by a merchant vessel.

ITALY & LIBYA

MIGRANT PUSH-BACKS

GLAN has filed an application against Italy with the European Court of Human Rights on behalf of seventeen survivors of a violent push-back at sea in 2017.

GREECE

FREE HUMANITARIANS

GLAN has filed an application with the European Court of Human Rights challenging the illegality of the Greek authorities’ crackdown on human rights defenders.

AUSTRALIA

OFF-SHORE DETENTION

GLAN and the Stanford International Human Rights Clinic are calling for an investigation into alleged crimes against humanity committed in Nauru and Manus Island.

COMING SOON

NEWS UPDATES

New project: Ending violent 'pushbacks' of refugees and migrants at the Greek-Turkish border

December 11, 2019

For years, the Greek authorities have been involved in informal, forcible removals (pushbacks) of migrants and asylum-seekers who enter Greece through its border with Turkey on the Evros river. The scale and violence of these pushbacks has intensified, while European institutions...

Case filed against Greece in Strasbourg Court over crackdown on humanitarian organisations

April 18, 2019

Following a two-and-a-half-year legal ordeal in Greek courts, Salam Kamal-Aldeen, founder of the non-profit Team Humanity, has filed an unprecedented application with the European Court of Human Rights challenging Greece’s crackdown on NGOs rescuing refugees at sea. (More on Salam...

Presentation to German Parliament on Mediterranean migrant abuse and the targeting of human rights defenders.

September 13, 2018

GLAN members Dr. Violeta Moreno-Lax and Dr. Itamar Mann appeared before members of the German parliament today, to address migrant drownings in the Mediterranean along with organizations such as Amnesty International, Proactiva Open Arms, the Alarm Phone Network, and our collabo...

Legal action against Italy over its coordination of Libyan Coast Guard pull-backs resulting in migrant deaths and abuse.

May 8, 2018

Screengrab from Forensic Oceanography's reconstruction of fatal maritime incident

Seventeen survivors of a fatal incident in which a boat carrying migrants found itself in distress off

the coast of Libya filed an application against Italy today with the European Court of Human Righ...

Refugee deportations may give rise to Israel's international criminal responsibility

April 15, 2018

Itamar Mann

On Sunday, April 15, 2018 GLAN wrote to warn officials from both Israel and Uganda on the possible international criminal legal ramifications of systematic forcible deportation of African asylum seekers to Uganda. Israel has claimed the two countries intend to go forward with the...

GLAN teams up with Forensic Architecture to examine migrant push-backs by the Australian navy

November 7, 2017

Ioannis Kalpouzos and Gearóid Ó Cuinn

GLAN is teaming up with Goldsmiths University’s Centre for Research Architecture and Forensic Architecture to map, visualise and investigate the Australian practice of push-backs of asylum-seeker boats.

On 13 February 2017, in collaboration with the Stanford International Human Ri...

Communication made to International Criminal Court requesting investigation of Australia and corporate contractors

February 13, 2017

GLAN

GLAN and the Stanford International Human Rights Clinic have submitted a communication to the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court. With input from an international coalition of legal experts the petition calls for an investigation into alleged crimes again...

Refugee camp company in Australia 'liable for crimes against humanity'

July 26, 2016

GLAN

The company that has taken over the management of Australia’s offshore immigration detention regime has been warned by international law experts that its employees could be liable for crimes against humanity.

Spanish infrastructure corporation Ferrovial, which is owned by one of th...

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