Omer Shatz, Senior Research Fellow at the CEU DI Rule of Law Clinic and the legal director of front-LEX, an NGO challenging EU migration policies via strategic litigation, has testified before the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (Committee on Migration, Refugees and Displaced Persons) on EU policies in the Mediterranean and the alleged individual responsibility of EU and Member States officials for Crimes Against Humanity in connection with these policies.
Every year from 2017 to date, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) reports the UN Security Council that numerous and ongoing Crimes Against Humanity against migrants are committed against ‘migrants’ captured in the Mediterranean and detained in Libyan camps, Shatz explained.
In 2019, front-LEX, and the “International Law in Action” Clinic at Sciences Po, Paris, France, filed a case with the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC against senior EU and Member States officials suspected of these crimes. The case was admitted but thus far the Prosecutor Karim A. A. Khan KC is unable or unwilling holding those responsible to account.
In 2023, the highest international human rights body, the United Nations Human Rights Council, adopted the findings of its fact finding mission, according to which Western Europeans are aiding and abetting Crimes Against Humanity in the Mediterranean and Libya, for the first time since WW2, Shatz said.
Based on their continuous breach Article 3 of the Council of Europe Statute, Shatz recommended the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to take measures not dissimilar to those taken against other States Parties which were recently found to breach their obligation under the Statute; to suspend the accession of the European Union to the European Convention on Human Rights until they terminate the criminal policies they are orchestrating in the Mediterranean; to call on national judiciaries of States Parties to exercise their national and universal jurisdiction and prosecute European nationals involved in these crimes; and to call on States Parties that are also parties to the Rome Statute to refer the situation in the EU to the ICC, in order to ensure the Prosecutor fulfills his obligation to impartially prosecute ICC crimes by opening an investigation on the situation in the EU.
