https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/46501 2026-05-31T23:30:42Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/46545 Title: Tightening the EU’s external borders : the impact on Euro-Mediterranean relations Abstract: In the past two years, the EU has been confronted with a massive flow of migrants and refugees across the Eastern and Central Mediterranean. To meet the challenge, various efforts were made to reinforce the Union’s external borders, more precisely those of the Schengen Area. The measures introduced are bound to affect Euro- Mediterranean relations or, as the EU sees it, relations with its southern neighbourhood. As I want to show in this paper, the results are mixed. Border tightening creates some new barriers between the Union and its neighbours but, as the EU soon realized, effective border management, whether on land or at sea, cannot be done alone. It requires some degree of cooperation with countries outside the Union. That can also entail a border opening. Migration policies often cut both ways – greater separation can be accompanied by new forms of proximity. Description: This document contains Notes on Contributors. 2016-09-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/46544 Title: Migrant and refugee law as relates to the maritime regime Authors: Vella De Fremeaux (Mallia), Patricia; Attard, Felicity Abstract: Focal to the backdrop of maritime migration lie individuals attempting to flee war, persecution, or natural disasters as well as those seeking to circumvent migration and border controls, often in an attempt to improve their economic circumstances. In recent months, the European community has been faced with an unprecedented number of migrant arrivals. According to statistics compiled by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees,85 more than one million migrants reached Europe in 2015.86 They arrived in the greatest numbers from conflict zones such as Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, but also from Kosovo, Nigeria and beyond.87 Europe has been struggling to deal with what has been labelled a ‘migration crisis’. As of August 2016, there have been more than 260,000 migrant arrivals by sea,88 nearly twice the number recorded by the same month of last year.89 These individuals are entitled to human rights protection irrespective of their classification as genuine asylum seekers or otherwise. This is the so-called ‘human factor’, encapsulating both human rights and humanitarian principles of protection. 2016-09-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/46543 Title: Migration in the Mediterranean : the nexus with media Abstract: On September 2, 2015, an image of a three-year old Syrian boy washed up on the beach in Turkey, went viral, penetrating every Facebook feed, tweeted thousands of times, and finding its way on the front pages of tens of newspapers in a few hours. Aylan Kurdi instantly became a household name but more than that, the image became iconic in that in his forlorn death, Aylan became the representative of the larger human tragedy that the refugee crisis had become and which up till then, had not elicited the response one would expect from the largest refugee crisis in Europe since the Second World War. The image of the Syrian toddler was seen on twenty million screens in twelve hours, with initial postings by a handful of journalists going viral with 53,000 uploads per hour - nothing less than a social media storm (Ferguson, 2016). 2016-09-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/46542 Title: Migration in the Mediterranean : is it a security threat? Abstract: The post-Arab Spring migration surge from and through the southern Mediterranean into the European Union has been accompanied by a rise in threat perceptions in the countries of destination. While viewing migration as a security issue is not new, migration is increasingly being referred to in one breath with terrorism and organised crime as a new security threat in the Euro-Mediterranean context. But is this an appropriate approach to the phenomenon of migration? Can migration be considered a security issue, in the same way that terrorism and organised crime are? What is the link between migration and terrorism and organised crime? The essay will argue that it is incorrect and misleading to use the term migration while considering security challenges, and will consider other terms that can help us to understand aspects of migration that may be useful in formulating the claim that in some cases migration can be considered a security issue, relevant for national security and/or human security. It then asks the question ‘whose security’ is relevant in such a debate – the security of states or humans? Furthermore, the essay will explore the link of migration to terrorism and organised crime. 2016-09-01T00:00:00Z