Permanent Peoples' Tribunal: sentence on the violations of the rights of migrants and refugees crossing the Mediterranean sea

On 18th December 2017, on the occasion of the anniversary of the adoption by the UN of the Convention on the protection of the rights of all migrant workers and the members of their families, the first session of the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal (PPT ) dedicated to the violation of the right of migrants and refugees opened in Palermo. The PPT has accepted the request, formulated in Barcelona the last July 2017 by the Transnational Institute of Amsterdam, the Transnational Migrant Platform-Europe and by a large network of associations and non-governmental organizations, to examine whether the policies and practices adopted by the European Union and its Member States, starting from Italy, constitute a violation of the rights of peoples, of migrants and of refugees.

On 20th December 2017, the international jury of the PPT, formed by seven professionals including experts in international relations, journalists, doctors and magistrates, made its decision public. Among the most significant conclusions, the decision recognises that European Union policies on migration and asylum, starting from the arrangements and agreements signed between the European Union and third countries, deny the fundamental rights of the person and of the migrant people, and recognises Italy’s responsibility, potentially in competition with the European agencies operating in the same context, in the actions of the Libyan forces against the migrants, both at sea and on the territory of Libya.

The Permanent Peoples' Tribunal is an institution founded in Bologna in 1979 by Lelio Basso, as an instrument to provide visibility and allow to speak peoples who are victims of violations of fundamental rights as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Peoples (Algiers, 1976).