The EC’s Guidance on the Facilitation Directive – Ending the Criminalisation of NGO-led SAR Operations?
[Malcolm Wu is an LL.M. candidate at the London School of Economics and Political Science.] Introduction As highlighted by Mudukuti and Gauci and Karageorgiou, the criminalisation of NGOs and human rights defenders (HRDs), notably within the context of search and rescue operations (SAR), has been on the rise in the EU since its migration crisis in 2015. A substantial role in this controversy belongs to the broadly-drafted Facilitation Directive 2002/90/EC which renders...