Euphemisms of success : AI technology in European border management and the rights of migrants at sea

Abstract

Border control practices are best characterised by the ‘risk logic’, which primarily deals with the anticipation and active prevention of undesirable events rather than with the presence of existential threats. Consequently, migrants are treated with a demarcated sense of otherness, whereby international waters serve as a metaphorical ‘moat’ to keep the unwanted out by intercepting boats or abstaining from international obligations of rescue. This paper seeks to unpack such legal and factual complexities by analysing contemporary manifestations of extraterritorial State power and remote control over migrants at sea, which compound ethical and legal concerns around rights abuses. In doing so, the analysis builds upon the human rights implications and the role that AI technology could play amid the adoption of the EU AI Act and the European Pact on Migration and Asylum. In this context, the article advocates that the current (ab)uses of technology give rise to a right to be rescued at sea, capable of minimising border deaths and refoulement practices.