Crimes against migrants and refugees, the International Criminal Court, and EU leaders’ responsibility: a permanently open-ended response as to Security Council referral of the Libyan situation?

The issue of crimes against migrants is a serious matter of global concern for States, international organizations and institutions, also involving the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) of the International Criminal Court (ICC) with regard to the abuses and ill-treatment of migrants and refugees in official and unofficial detention centres in Libya. In the context of continuing insecurity in Libya, the OPT collected and analysed information relating to serious and widespread crimes allegedly committed against migrants and refugees attempting to transit through Libya, including arbitrary detention, unlawful killing, enforced disappearance, torture, sexual and gender-based violence, abduction for ransom, extortion, and forced labour, potentially falling within the Court’s jurisdiction. Without absolving human traffickers in Libya from their responsibilities, as extensively discussed by scholars, this study focuses on the more controversial and pioneering issue of the European Union (EU)’s role in the aforementioned acts and possible indictments of EU and EU member States’ agents for crimes against migrants as a result of their personal involvement in the States’ deterrence, criminalization, arrival prevention, and refoulement policies.