Externalisation of Human Rights Protection of Migrants in the Central Mediterranean: An Analysis of Italy’s and European Union’s Relations with Tunisia

In recent years, Italy and the European Union have significantly intensified their cooperation with Tunisia in the field of migration governance with the declared objective of strengthening control over their external borders and curbing arrivals along the Central Mediterranean Route. The Memorandum of Understanding on a strategic and global partnership signed between the European Union and Tunisia on July 16th, 2023 embodies this approach, consolidating a broader trend towards the externalisation of border control and the informalisation of the engagements that the European Union has increasingly contracted with neighbouring third countries.

Within this framework, Tunisia is framed by Italy and the European Union as a key strategic partner for migration management, especially due to its location across the Central Mediterranean Route. However, extensive documentation produced by international and independent human rights organisations reveals a deeply concerning set of practices adopted by the Tunisian authorities towards people on the move on the Tunisian territory. 

This thesis investigates the central paradox at the core of this cooperation: While on the Northern shore of the Mediterranean the European Union and Italy rely on Tunisia to hold back departures towards Europe, on the Southern shore, Tunisia lacks and adequate migration and asylum system and perpetrates serious and well-documented human rights violations against people on the move. 

Against this background, across the Central Mediterranean Route, which remains the most dangerous and deadliest maritime migratory link of the Mediterranean Sea, Tunisia has replaced Libya as the main point of departure from Northern Africa towards Italy with a 138% increase in 2023 compared to the previous year. 2023 also marked the rise of racial discrimination against Black people on the move on the Tunisian territory not only the hand of civil population but also at the highest level of institutional representation, namely with the presidential speech of February 21st, 2023 in which the Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed, reinforced the discriminatory environment insisting on conspiracy theories of “population substitution” at the hands of people coming from Sub-Saharan countries.

The 2023 Memorandum of Understanding between the European Union and Tunisia within the trends of externalisation and informalisation

On the Northern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, the focus on preventing departures from the South has grown increasingly assertive. The structure of rules and policy architecture underpinning the system encountered by people on the move in Europe, the Common European and Asylum System (CEAS), growingly relies on reinforcing its external borders by means of concluding agreements with third neighbouring countries, in the case under analysis, Tunisia, with its geographical closeness to Europe and its history of diplomatic proximity to Italy, plays nowadays a pivotal role in the externalisation of the European Union’s borders. 

Within the CEAS, the trends of externalisation accompanied by informalisation of agreements with third countries are growing considerably. According to Fitzgerald (2019), externalisation can be conceptualised as the “remote control of migration” intending that it consists in a collection of practices, physical structures, and institutions which aim to control individuals’ movement in the moment in which they are still outside the territory of their intended destination country. This occurs by identifying, monitoring, and detaining people on the move, thereby filtering mobility through what he terms an “architecture of repulsion”. In his view, destination countries’ governments act beyond their territories in a comprehensive and continuous collaboration with origin and transit countries with the aim of determining who is eligible to cross the border. In this sense, the European Union’s focus on externalisation has increasingly become a strategic priority in which cooperation with third countries intended to prevent departures towards the European territory rather than reinforcing legal pathways and asylum systems. Nonetheless, cooperation with third countries has been taking hybrid forms, mixing incentives, conditionalities, and policy convergence, to produce arrangements perceived as mutually beneficial for both European Union actors and neighbouring states. The externalisation trend has been increasingly characterised by a steep informalisation that shaped into a deliberate and tactical shift away from legally-binding instruments towards informal tools, which mainly consist in Memorandum of Understanding (MoUs), joint declarations, so called migration dialogues, Mobility Partnerships which would include a combination of negative and positive incentives to persuade through a "rewarding system” third countries to contain departures from their territories. One of the key and most discussed agreements, which became a template for similar arrangements on migration is the ”EU-Turkey Statement” signed on March 18th, 2016. Numerous similar agreements have followed, across the Central Mediterranean Route as well. 

Against this background, the latest cooperation agreement signed between Tunisia and the European Union on July, 16th 2023 and titled “Memorandum of Understanding on a strategic and global partnership” can be inscribed both in the externalisation and informalisation trends developed by the European Union with Italy’s long-standing role in fostering cooperation with Tunisia due to geographical proximity and its centrality in Central Mediterranean mobility dynamics. Both the EU and Italy have sought to externalise border controls with the primary aim of preventing departures from the Tunisian coast towards Italy, embedding migration control among a broader set of “strategic priorities”. In fact, it is with the 2023 MoU on a strategic and global partnership that externalisation and informalisation trends crystallise. The Memorandum is a paradigmatic illustration of the EU’s contemporary reliance on externalisation through informal instruments. While presented as a wide-ranging “strategic and global partnership”, the text is characterised by a marked semantic vagueness: commitments to “enhance cooperation”, “strengthen capacities”, or adopt a “holistic approach” are formulated without any precise obligations, measurable benchmarks, or enforceable engagements. 

Such ambiguity is not incidental, but functional: it maximises executive discretion while minimising the legal and democratic scrutiny normally associated with binding international agreements.

Beneath this broad rhetoric, the Memorandum is operationally centred on migration containment along the Central Mediterranean route. Financial assistance and development cooperation are closely intertwined with Tunisian commitments on border management, anti-smuggling measures, and the reduction of departures towards Europe. The agreement thus relocates migration control beyond the European Union’s territory while preserving institutional flexibility and still enabling the deployment of funds towards Tunisia in order to perform the agreed border control functions. Particularly significant are the concerns raised over the absence of robust human-rights safeguards. In her formal inquiry to the European Commission, the European Ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly, questioned whether any prior human-rights assessment had been conducted before the disbursement of funds, how compliance with applicable human-rights standards would be monitored, and whether cooperation could be suspended in the event of serious violations. Parallel warnings were expressed by the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatović, who highlighted the risks attached to migration cooperation with Tunisia in a context of democratic backsliding, repression of civil society, and abuses against migrants and asylum seekers. The Memorandum, however, provides no clear monitoring framework, independent oversight mechanism, or suspension clause capable of responding to such risks.

Alongside the European Union’s engagement with Tunisia, the reinforcement of border control at the Tunisian maritime frontier has been long carried out by Italy. Not only are the two countries geographically particularly close, but they also share a longstanding tradition of bilateral diplomatic proximity. In the realm of migration cooperation, Italy has been operationally supporting externalisation towards Tunisia not only by enhancing the negotiation process of the 2023 EU-Tunisia Memorandum of Understanding, acting as pivotal dialogue partner, but also by providing consistent support in terms of equipment, military training, funds, fuel by means of different and subsequent bilateral programs. Between 1998 and 2025 Italy and Tunisia have continuously engaged in finding measures aimed to strengthening the Tunisian border control capacities as well as diminishing and preventing arrivals from the South to North under different arrays of programs such as, for instance, the 2017 “Migration Fund” or the subsequent “Reward Fund for Return Policies” or other support means to United Nations agencies. 

Documented Human Rights Violations against People on the Move in Tunisia

The European Union’s and Italy’s substantial engagement with Tunisia in preventing departures stands in stark contrast with the reality on the ground marked by serious human rights violations as reported by different authoritative non-governmental organisations, among which Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), Alarm Phone, the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights (FTDES), the international research group of RR[X] together with Border Forensics and the Association for Juridical Studies on Migration (ASGI), notably within the “State Trafficking” (2025) project. The documented practices carried out by Tunisian authorities towards people on the move in Tunisia do raise profound concerns regarding the human rights dimension of the Memorandum of Understanding itself, which explicitly states that cooperation on migration shall be “(...) based on the respect for human rights”.

The overall disregard for human rights among the longstanding network of bilateral migration partnerships is incarnated in the illegal practices perpetrated by the Tunisian authorities against people on the move. 

Analysed together, the main concerns are related to three main interrelated human rights violations put in place against people crossing Tunisia while escaping their countries of origin. They often face violent interceptions at sea incurring in violations of human rights perpetrated by the Tunisian Coast Guard as well as collective expulsions and abandonment in desert border areas with Libya and Algeria, in an overall environment marked by the rise of institutionalised racism and racially motivated socio-economic exclusion targeting especially Sub-Saharan people on the move. These three main sets of practices are deeply interconnected on the ground in a “continuum” of violence.

According to the reports, people on the move in Tunisia are neither welcome to stay nor permitted to leave: Those attempting to reach Europe are intercepted and returned, while life in Tunisia is rendered increasingly unlivable. Considering the human rights violations perpetrated against people on the move, through interceptions, desert expulsions, arbitrary detention, and socio-economic exclusion, they find themselves in a condition of terror and juridical limbo, explicitly aimed at deterring both their arrival and their continued presence on Tunisian territory. 

In a communication issued in August 2023 by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants together with other Special Procedures warned that the implementation of the 2023 MoU could give rise to violations of the the principle of non-refoulment and other non-derogable rightsincluding the right to life, the prohibition of torture, and the prohibition of collective expulsions. 
Placing the human rights situation of people on the move at the centre of the analysis is essential to adequately capture the real human impact and price of the European and Italian cooperation with Tunisia in the field of migration.

Is Tunisia a Safe Third Country? Externalisation of Responsibilities for the Human Rights of People on the Move coming from Tunisia

Taking into consideration the analysis of the human rights violations perpetrated by Tunisian authorities under Italy’s and European Union’s aegis, questions regarding the legitimacy of the partners’ migration cooperation arise. Critically, the thesis engages in an analysis of the qualification of Tunisia as a “safe country of origin” which makes of the country a reliable partner in terms of migration governance appearing as less a reflection of its actual human rights record and more a strategic instrument aimed at restricting and emptying access to asylum in Europe. The persistence of Tunisia’s designation as “safe third country”, despite judicial challenges and extensive documentation of serious human rights violations, suggests that the considerations underpinning this classification transcend an evidence-based assessment. 

Tunisia’s classification as a safe country and reliable partner appears to operate functionally and strategically. As Carlino (2024) points out, this political manoeuvre appears far more “necessary” than “real” as the strategic and presumptive perception of safety of Tunisia does not reflect at all the lived and reported realities on the ground. 

Viewed in this light, the conclusion of migration partnerships and the persistent classification of Tunisia a “safe third country” starkly contrasts with the country’s democratic regression, the absence of an effective migration governance framework, and the documented pattern of serious human rights violations against people on the move. At the same time, this classification stands in sharp tension with the deepened proximity and cooperation established between Tunisia, Italy, and the European Union, revealing a set of policy choices driven primarily by the strategic objective of halting departures towards Italy, rather than by compliance with international human rights obligations. In this respect, Tunisia can be seen as increasingly positioned as a buffer State tasked with absorbing protection obligations within Saïed’s hyper-presidential system. Accordingly, Tunisia’s designation as a “safe country of origin”, combined with bilateral readmission agreements, pull-back operations, and expulsions towards the desert, operates to circumvent international prohibitions on refoulement and collective expulsions, while simultaneously rendering formal asylum procedures inaccessible. 

Conclusions

This thesis examines, through multiple lenses, a set of interconnected political, legal and human rights issues that lead to clear and simultaneously troubling conclusions: Italy and the European Union are externalising their human rights obligations towards people on the move along the Central Mediterranean Route by strengthening migration-related partnerships with Tunisia. By adopting an interdisciplinary approach, the research has sought to demonstrate the necessity of scrutinising more closely the responsibilities that Italy and the European Union bear vis-à-vis people on the move who are exposed to documented human rights violations perpetrated by Tunisian authorities, with the undeniable awareness of their European partners.

Despite the careful engineering of responsibility avoidance put in place through informal instruments, the thesis argues that the foreseeable and systemic reported human rights consequences of these cooperation partnerships cannot be detached from European and Italian support, funding, and enabling policies.

For this reason, the current architecture of externalisation raises a fundamental question of responsibility for the extraterritorial human rights consequences of migration governance.

This work, therefore, calls for a critical reassessment of the legitimacy, effectiveness, and human rights sustainability of externalisation policies, and for a radical reflection on the responsibilities of Member States, namely Italy, in ensuring that migration governance does not come at the expense of the fundamental rights it claims to protect. 

Bibliography

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