There is a normative gap at the core of the EU’s legal order. This gap concerns the lives and fundamental rights of countless vulnerable persons, depriving tens of thousands victims of judicial remedy in EU Courts. By challenging the restrictive lex lata governing the access of victims to Court, this project aspires to enhance human rights protection at EU external borders. The Eastern Mediterranean is the case study of this project. In 2020, more than 10,000 toddlers, women and men were kidnapped from EU soil or waters by EU agents. This civilian population was then forcibly transferred to and abandoned at sea on unworthy rafts – with no means of navigation, communication, food, water and, at times, no life vests. Frontex finances, draft the operational plan and coordinates this ongoing policy. Frontex detects, intercepts and hands over the targeted civilian population to Greek forces who complete the collective expulsion operation. This policy triggers individual (ICC) and state (ECtHR) responsibility. But to date, Frontex enjoys full organizational impunity (CJEU). This project aims to bridge this normative gap by providing the roadmap to hold to account the most important, and infamous, EU law enforcement agency.
Fr 10 Jun 2022 | 14:30–15:30
The Normative Gap at EU External Borders
Fellow Talk by Omer Shatz (Sciences Po, front-LEX), chaired by Colleen Boland (Autonomous University of Barcelona)
A Yale Law School graduate, Omer Shatz is an international lawyer, a Lecturer in International Law at Sciences Po Paris, and the legal director of front-LEX. In Israel\Palestine, he co-founded a human rights law firm that specialized in Supreme Court and High Court of Justice litigation of high-profile matters. He also co-founded and was the legal co-director of an NGO that provided pro-bono representation to detained asylum-seekers. He also co-litigated the Anti-Infiltration Law case, a landmark ruling that led to the release of 1,500 refugees and secured the liberty of tens of thousands others. In France, Omer was a senior associate in the International Arbitration Group of Shearman & Sterling LLP. He also gave legal advice to organisations and individuals such as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and Julian Assange. As the legal director of front-LEX he is currently focused on legally challenging EU migration policies before international, European and EU Courts. He co-filed the 1st ECtHR case over the criminalization of rescue NGOs (2018), the 1st ICC case against EU officials over EU policies in the Central Mediterranean and Libya (2019), and the 1st CJEU case against the EU Border Agency Frontex over its policy in the Eastern Mediterranean (2021).
