Humanitarianism cannot be evaded

Joseph Muscat's Labour government is puffing itself up for a stand-off that is designed to test the boundaries of customary international law and, most unfortunately, the limits of our humanitarian endeavour.

The plight of some 102 migrants rescued at sea, now being hosted aboard the commercial tanker MT Salamis, is an illustration of how coastal states in the Mediterranean are attempting to divest themselves of their humanitarian and international obligations at law by using popular domestic concerns on immigration and asylum as an excuse. A similar incident occurred in 2009, when both Italy and Malta quibbled over who was to take responsiblity for the migrants saved by the Turkish-flagged Pinar E, forcing the European Commission to intervene in the diplomatic stand-off.

On Sunday, the tanker Salamis, carrying a shipment of gasoil to Malta, left the port of Khoms in Libya and in the process rescued a group of 102 migrants. The rescue was carried out on the instructions of the Italian rescue coordination centre, and abiding by the laws of search and rescue, the Salamis effected the necessary operation. But instead of turning back to Khoms, just 45 miles away from the rescue location, the Salamis continued en route to its intended destination in Malta, ostensibly to deliver both the migrants it had saved and its oil shipment.

As Muscat tweeted late yesterday afternoon in a 140-character digest of foreign policy, the Maltese government blamed the Salamis for ignoring the Italian RCC's instructions. "Malta cannot be expected to step in for irresponsible shipowners flouting rules for commercial purposes," the prime minister stated on Twitter.

As things stood on Monday morning, there was no doubt that the fastest resolution to the predicament of these migrants was to be returned to the nearest and safest port of call. Some sort of intervention by Libyan coastguards would have also been expected. The Salamis, for reasons that so far can only be considered "commercial," decided against the guidance of the Italian RCC, putting at risk the lives of the migrants aboard by prolonging a rescue journey that could have been terminated in Khoms.

But like all such scenarios, this one has a very politically charged flipside. These migrants are not just castaways or boaters who lost their way at sea. They are potential asylum seekers and must be contextualised as such: in consideration of them exercising their right of safe passsage across international waters in a bid to seek protection, possibly by effecting illegal entry into Malta or Italy so that they could claim asylum.

We should not seek to further criminalise the universal right to seek asylum any more than it already is. The refoulement, or forcible pushback, of asylum seekers to Libya would be illegal even if a European coastguard rescued them and delivered them to the country they were fleeing from - or if Malta blockaded its ports to the Salamis in a show of force redolent of the Berlusconi government... one which our prime minister indeed praised as Opposition leader.

So as this humanitarian crisis enters its third day, and the Salamis has edged definitely into the Maltese search and rescue region and close to the island's territorial waters, we can no longer support the notion that a European government can divest itself of its interational obligations to shipowners. States remain the international actors who enforce human rights and effect humanitarian rescue. Electing to abandon these obligations to non-state actors and private interests creates a dangerous precedent: it warns shipowners to ignore calls for rescue because governments like Malta's would refuse them entry or succour.

In this specific case, the shipowner of the Salamis effected a humanitarian rescue on orders of a state, but then refused guidance to take the migrants back to Libya, ostensibly for commercial reasons. European Commissioner for Home Affairs Cecilia Malmström yesterday insisted that sending a vessel carrying 102 migrants at sea back to Libya would violate international law and urged Malta to receive the migrants.

As the humanitarian situation has developed now, the Maltese government can no longer evade its responsibilities over a legalistic quibble that is down to a shipmaster's misguided decision to forge ahead on his route to Malta.

In the first place, the migrants on board need proper medical assistance, which might not be available to them in Libya. There is no choice, as the Salamis edges closer to Malta, but to have the lives of these people rescued by the Maltese armed forces. The question is: how many more days must pass until the botched search and rescue mission that had to terminate in Libya, turns into a full-blown humanitarian crisis.

In the second, coastal states must assume their humanitarian obligations and relieve commercial vessels of people rescued at sea, because they remain the primary actors responsible for ensuring the integrity of international search and rescue rules.

To abandon our obligations and endanger the lives of human beings at the altar of domestic convenience, because popular discontent adds to the government's arsenal on the European discussion table, is a heinous act of political brinkmanship.

Bereft of all logic, the Maltese government prefers pursuing a point of principle, which endangers the lives of 102 asylum seekers, in a stand-off against a commercial vessel. This is the natural consequence of Muscat's hawkish immigration policy. But its eagerness at exploiting an adverse humanitarian situation for its own political gain is a worrying development in the way Labour views the human side of Mediterranean migration.