From Humanitarian Rescue to Legal Contestation: SAR NGOs and Migration Governance in the Central Mediterranean

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  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Sociology of Human Rights Roundtables - Table 1

Abstract

The closure of the Italian-led military-humanitarian operation Mare Nostrum in late 2014 marked a critical turning point in the governance of the Central Mediterranean border. Initiated after the 2013 Lampedusa shipwreck, Mare Nostrum combined military and humanitarian capacities to rescue thousands of migrants. Its termination, replaced by the Frontex-led Operation Triton, focused on border control rather than search and rescue, producing an operational vacuum and a sharp rise in fatalities. In 2015 alone, the International Organization for Migration reported over 3,700 deaths, highlighting the human cost of institutional retreat.

Amid this crisis, a new constellation of Search and Rescue (SAR) NGOs—including Sea-Watch, Open Arms, SOS MEDITERRANEE, MOAS, and Jugend Rettet—emerged between 2015 and 2016. Operating in international waters under maritime law, these organizations prioritized life-saving over state sovereignty. The April 2015 shipwreck, with over 800 casualties, catalyzed transnational mobilization and moral engagement, shaping both activist and professionalized humanitarian practices.

Initially integrated by the Italian Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (IMRCC), NGOs participated in coordinated rescue operations, reporting distress incidents and managing disembarkations. Ethnographic observation demonstrates the operational and ethical complexity of these missions, as NGOs navigated life-saving imperatives, bureaucratic coordination, and international legal obligations.

By 2017, growing visibility and critique of European migration policies triggered criminalization efforts, particularly in Italy. Judicial outcomes consistently affirmed the legality of SAR interventions, prompting NGOs to invoke humanitarian law and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to defend their operations. This dual trajectory—from cooperative governance to legal contestation—illustrates how SAR NGOs operate simultaneously as humanitarian actors and political subjects, using law to assert human rights and challenge securitarian border policies.

The Central Mediterranean emerges as a contested maritime space where humanitarianism, law, and migration governance intersect. SAR NGOs’ interventions reveal the tension between state border control and legal obligations to protect life, highlighting the capacity of civil society to influence governance, contest restrictive policies, and render migrant deaths politically and legally visible. Fieldwork spans 2016–2019, with ongoing tracking of political and legal developments through 2026.

Author

• Marta Esperti, Université Paris 13 - Sorbonne Paris Cité