The ‘inward-looking’ securitization of the EU external migration policy in the New Pact on Migration and Asylum: a critical appraisal from a perspective of international law with reference to migration from Africa

Abstract

The New Pact on Migration and Asylum presented by the European Commission in September 2020 largely outlines migration as a security threat both under an internal perspective and – although more latently – in the development of the external migration policy. In fact, it puts an emphasis on conflict prevention and resolution, as well as peace, security and governance strategies to be implemented in migrants’ countries of origin through ‘hard security’ policies aimed at de facto externalizing migration controls which resulted to be more instrumental in interdicting migratory flows than in eradicating their root causes. Such ‘securitarian’ approach does not seem to take full account of the broader consolidated contemporary dimension of the concept of security, which encompasses the protection of ‘human security’ which complements state security, strengthens human development and enhances human rights. The need to implement more human-security oriented strategies in order to manage the migration phenomenon more effectively seems to emerge clearly in relation to migration flows from the African continent.