The European Union should be tried for crimes against humanity, according to a group of human rights lawyers who are taking their case to the International Criminal Court.
The lawyers are basing their case on the EU policies they say are responsible for the deaths of thousands of migrants in the Mediterranean.
As reported by Deutsche Welle (DW), Germany’s international broadcaster, ICC prosecutors are already gathering evidence about crimes against refugees in Libya. But the lawyers are taking it one step further by arguing that the EU and member states are also largely to blame for migrant deaths on land and at sea.
In a 243-page document that was shared with international news outlets, the lawyers outlined several EU actions to deter migration which they argue have violated human rights.
“[European officials] pretended that this was a tragedy that nothing could be done against it that they had no role in it,” Juan Branco, a lawyer who formerly worked at the ICC and one of the co-authors of the document, told the Associated Press.
“And we demonstrate very carefully that, on the contrary, they triggered this so-called tragedy,” he added.
