GLAN's application was submitted to the European Court of Human Rights on 8 May 2018, in partnership with the Italian Association for Juridical Studies on Immigration (ASGI). The case was prepared with support from the Italian grassroots movement and NGO ARCI, Yale Law School’s Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic, and the Rosa Parks Migration Law Clinic of the University of Louvain. The legal argumentation is based on Violeta Moreno-lax’ academic research. The case exposes how the intervention of the Libyan Coast Guard follows the terms of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) concluded in February 2017 between Italy and the Libyan Government of National Accord. As a consequence of this and the underlying 2008 Treaty of Friendship signed by the Gaddafi and Berlusconi governments, Italy has been enabling and coordinating the Libyan response at sea through targeted funding, equipment, training, and direct involvement in the coordination and communication structures of the Libyan Coast Guard, to the point that, according to the Italian judiciary, Libyan interventions happen “under the aegis of the Italian navy”. The application asserts that such deep cooperation establishes Italy’s legal responsibility for the wrongdoing of Italian and Libyan actors, on the basis of the deployment by Italy of “contactless control” techniques that amount to a human-rights relevant exercise of “functional jurisdiction”.

The submission made use of evidence provided by the rescue NGO Sea-Watch, gathered through the Search and Rescue Observatory for the Mediterranean (SAROBMED) project, which is coordinated by the Law School of Queen Mary, University of London. This evidence was then systematised and analysed by Forensic Oceanography, part of the Forensic Architecture agency based at Goldsmiths, University of London, who produced a detailed reconstruction of the incident and its underlying policies. This action was initiated by GLAN and is now under the leadership of De:Border Collective.