The European Journal of International Law Vol. 29 no. 4 EJIL (2018), Vol. 29 No. 4, 1173–1196 doi:10.1093/ejil/chy065 © The Author(s), 2019. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of EJIL Ltd. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected] Biopolitical Borders and the State of Exception in the European Migration ‘Crisis’ Daria Davitti* , Abstract This article examines the current European refugee ‘crisis’ by challenging, from a theoret- ical perspective, the way in which the European Union (EU) has used the increased num- ber of deaths in the Mediterranean as an opportunity to frame recent migration flows as an emergency that, by definition, can only be addressed through the adoption of exceptional measures. The analysis engages with the work of Giorgio Agamben on biopolitics and state of exception to illustrate, first, the need to rethink the way in which borders are defined and used (for example, externalized) within the context of the European refugee ‘crisis’. Second, Agamben’s work is useful to understand what moves the externalization and privatization of migration, and to ascertain how international law has enabled the emergence of this ‘crisis’ framing, whilst, at the same time, partly losing its ability to challenge EU policies. The article argues that the posture of humanitarianism adopted by the EU masks the fact that the appalling situation in which refugees are abandoned is not accidental but, rather, inherent to the enhanced measures adopted by the EU and its member states as part of the European Agenda on Migration. 1 Introduction In this article, I examine the current European refugee ‘crisis’ by challenging, from a theoretical perspective, the way in which the European Union (EU) has used the increased number of deaths in the Mediterranean as an opportunity to frame recent migration flows as an emergency that, by definition, can only be addressed through the adoption of exceptional measures. Throughout the article, I engage with the work of Giorgio Agamben on biopolitics and state of exception to illustrate, first, the need to rethink the way in which borders are defined and used (for example, externalized) * Research Fellow, Faculty of Law, Lund University, Sweden; Assistant Professor, School of Law, University of Nottingham; Head of the Forced Migration Unit, Human Rights Law Centre, University of Nottingham, United Kingdom. Email: [email protected].
Biopolitical Borders and the State of Exception in the European Migration ‘Crisis’
Jul 11, 2023
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