Law of the Sea

YLS Sale Symposium: Sale’s Legacies

[Harold Hongju Koh is Sterling Professor of International Law at Yale Law School. He served as Legal Adviser, U.S. Department of State, from 2009-13 and Counsel of Record for plaintiffs in Sale v. Haitian Centers Council, from 1992-93.] Why, two decades later, does the Sale v. Haitian Centers Council litigation still spark such interest? This year alone, symposia about the litigation have transpired at law schools at Yale, Columbia, Howard, Brooklyn, and in London.  The case has been dissected in first-year Procedure Classes at Yale, Columbia, Touro, University of Connecticut, and New York Law Schools, just to name a few, using as texts Brandt Goldstein’s absorbing nonfiction novel Storming the Court, and his Storming the Court: A Documentary Companion, compiled with co-authors Professors Rodger Citron and Molly Beutz Land. These texts tell the tale of a complex bifurcated lawsuit brought by a class of “screened-in” refugees and their lawyers against the U.S. Government, challenging first, the long-term detention of Haitians on Guantanamo, and second, starting in May, 1993, their direct return to Haiti following interdiction on the high seas.  Remarkably, the two halves of this frenetic case—which rocketed to the Supreme Court eight times in just fifteen months—ended on the same day in June 1993.  The Direct Return half of the case concluded with an 8-1 defeat for the Haitians at the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that the nonrefoulement obligations of  8 U.S.C. sec. 1253(h) and Art. 33 of the Refugee Convention do not apply on high seas. But on that same day, in the Illegal Detention wing of the lawsuit, some 200 HIV+ Haitian refugees detained for months on Guantanamo were released following trial, pursuant to a permanent injunction granted by Judge Sterling Johnson, Jr. of the Eastern District of New York. "Although the [U.S. government] defendants euphemistically refer to its Guantánamo operation as a ‘humanitarian camp,’” Judge Johnson wrote, “the facts disclose that it is nothing more than an H.I.V. prison camp presenting potential public health risks to the Haitians held there.” This Opinio Juris Symposium just concluded reveals that, even decades after Sale ended, its story keeps repeating.  In particular, as the excellent contributions to this symposium have illustrated, Sale leaves behind three competing legacies. The first is the continuing governmental search for “national security black holes” through techniques of high seas interdiction, offshore detention camps, and theories that human rights law can be displaced by extraterritoriality and the law of armed conflict.  But this first legacy has been countered by a second legacy-- constantly evolving strategies of transnational legal process and litigation-- and a third-- rapidly adjusting changes in human rights advocacy and clinical education. Together, the second and third legacies have largely thwarted continuing governmental efforts to construct enduring legal black holes. In Sale, Justice John Paul Stevens found for eight Justices that the non-return (nonrefoulement) obligations of Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and Article 33 of the 1951 Refugee Convention did not apply on the high seas.  As I chronicled shortly after the decision, that conclusion was deeply flawed methodologically: it ignored both the plain text and object and purpose of the treaty and statute. Moreover, the majority ignored contradictory negotiating and legislative history underlying both laws; overly deferred to executive power; and exalted the so-called statutory “presumption against extraterritoriality,” a trend the current Court strengthened in its recent Kiobel decision. Justice Blackmun’s compelling dissent skewered the majority, underscoring not only that the text and meaning of the INA and Refugee Convention were simple and crystalline—“Vulnerable refugees shall not be returned”—but also that that object and purpose would be entirely thwarted if those legal obligations did not apply extraterritoriality to protect fleeing refugees. Looking back, Justice Stevens’ decision is most striking for its frank and admirable acknowledgement of the “moral weight “ of the Haitians’ claim. Justice Stevens found his own ruling deeply in tension with the spirit of the treaty, but curiously, instead of reading that text consistent with that object and purpose, Justice Stevens found instead that, although “the human crisis is compelling, there is no solution to be found in a judicial remedy.” Internal Court memos unearthed after Sale show that Justice Scalia had objected to the Court’s mere mention of “the moral weight” of the Haitians’ claim, saying “For my taste, that comes too close to acknowledging that it is morally wrong to return these refugees to Haiti, which I do not believe.”  To which Justice Stevens responded,  “I think it is undeniable that it has some moral weight and I think it would be unfortunate for us to imply that we think it may have none” (emphasis in the original).

YLS Sale Symposium: International Protection Challenges Occasioned by Maritime Movement of Asylum-Seekers

[T. Alexander Aleinikoff is the UN Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees.] Irregular maritime movement raises complex issues of “mixed migration” flows, life-risking sea crossings, varying state policies, well-ingrained smuggling and trafficking networks, and emerging regional processes.  Movement of migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers by sea is a world-wide phenomenon, with Afghans, Sri Lankans, Rohingyas, and Bangladeshis, among others, travelling by boat in the Indian Ocean and Andaman Sea; more than 60,000 persons a year (mostly Ethiopians) arriving in Yemen; sub-Saharan Africans and now increasingly Syrians and Palestinians from Syria seeking to cross the Mediterranean from North Africa to Europe; and several thousand Cuban and Haitian migrants interdicted each year in the Caribbean. The central goal of UNHCR is that states adopt policies and practices that are protection-sensitive.  A protection-sensitive approach would, at a minimum, embrace the following core principles:

• The norm of non-refoulement, which prevents forcible return of a person in need of protection, applies wherever a state has de jure or de facto jurisdiction  (that is, whether the individual is encountered on the high seas or within the territorial water of a state).
• Effective application of the non-refoulement principle requires fair and timely procedures for assessing whether an individual in an irregular situation is in need of international protection.
• During the time that refugee claims are being examined, persons must not be subject to arbitrary detention or inhumane or degrading treatment.
• Persons recognized as in need of international protection should ultimately be afforded a solution (such as third country resettlement or lawful presence in the state in which their claim is assessed).

Rescue at Sea The vessels used by irregular migrants are often unseaworthy, and search and rescue efforts are frequently required in order to save lives.  “Rescue at sea” standards are embodied in number of international instruments, but important gaps remains—particularly related to (1) where rescued migrants should be disembarked, and (2) how best to ensure the processing of asylum claims and the provision of solutions.  A UNHCR-hosted experts meeting on Refugees and Asylum-seekers in Distress at Sea (held in Djibouti in 2011) supported a Model Framework for Cooperation for rescue at sea operations.  The aims of the Framework are to reduce loss of life, ensure predictability regarding disembarkation, preserve the principle of non-refoulement, and foster burden-sharing. The expert group also supported the establishment of mobile protection teams that can respond in rescue at sea situations, including by providing assistance with the reception and processing of rescued persons. In November of 2013, UNHCR launched the Central Mediterranean Sea Initiative (CMSI), which proposes a comprehensive strategy for the region that would strengthen search and rescue by E.U. authorities and private ships, identify safe places for disembarkation, and provide screening of migrants to assess protection needs and other grounds of vulnerability. As to burden-sharing, the CMSI recognizes that the location for assessment of refugee claims need not be the state of disembarkation and recommends the establishment of a joint processing pilot for persons rescued in international waters and the resettlement of persons found in need of protection. The Initiative also proposes measures to reduce irregular migration, including mass communication efforts in countries of origin highlighting the dangerousness of irregular movement at sea, the establishment of robust asylum and protection processes in North Africa, and the enhancement of legal migration opportunities. Interdiction Rescue at sea is a humanitarian response to migrants in danger on the high seas. Interdiction is a law enforcement activity undertaken to prevent irregular migration that seeks to avoid state migration rules and processes. The reasons for irregular migration are numerous: migrants for whom legal channels of migration are not available may seek to join family members or to obtain work; or persons involved in criminal activity may try to avoid detection by law enforcement officers. Of central concern to UNHCR are individuals who undertake irregular movement in order to flee from persecution, conflict or other situations of violence and seek to access international protection guaranteed by international law. UNHCR recognizes that states have legitimate interests in law enforcement actions against smugglers and traffickers and migrants seeking entry outside of lawful avenues.  But we urge states to ensure that such efforts comply with international conventions and norms relating to refugees and human rights.  UNHCR’s Executive Committee has declared that “[i]nterception measures should not result in asylum-seekers and refugees being denied access to international protection, or result [in non-refoulement].” (Conclusion on Protection Safeguards in Interception Measures (Conclusion 97, 2003).) Despite this well-recognized norm, we see alleged “tow-backs” of boats in the Mediterranean that result in the loss of life, “push-backs” in the Andaman Sea that seem to be instances of refoulement, and on-board screening and returns in the Caribbean that appear not to fully protect against non-refoulement. Interdiction and return—without any process—raises obvious protection concerns (and was held in Hirsi Jamaa and Others v. Italy to be a violation of European human rights norms).  Fortunately, it is not generally the rule, and states that intercept migrants at sea generally have policies and practices in place that they assert meet its duty to comply with international protection principles.  Thus, they may (1) screen and/or process intercepted asylum-seekers on the high seas (e.g., ship-board screening by the U.S. Coast Guard); (2) undertake extra-territorial processing (e.g., United States assessments of “screened-in” Cubans in Guantanamo), or (3) transfer interdicted asylum-seekers to other states for processing (the transfer of asylum-seekers by Australian authorities to Papua New Guinea and Nauru is one of several measures undertaken by Australia to deter irregular migration).

YLS Sale Symposium: Sale’s Legacy and Beyond (Part II)

[Guy S. Goodwin-Gill is a Senior Research Fellow, All Souls College, Oxford and Professor of International Refugee Law, University of Oxford.] Recent EU and ECHR jurisprudence on a range of State activities affecting refugees and asylum seekers has emphasized that fundamental rights are not just about freedom from torture or refoulement, but also about effective remedies. What comes through in the judgments of the CJEU in N.S. and Puid, for example, is acceptance of the notion that fundamental rights may well require proactive, protective action – in the case of the Dublin system, a duty to assume responsibility wherever transfer may expose the individual to a serious risk of prohibited harm, such as refoulement or inhuman or degrading treatment. The European Court of Human Rights decision in M.S.S. v. Belgium and Greece further supports this proposition, while that in Hirsi v Italy goes still further on the interception issue. Other courts in other jurisdictions have been no less robust in defence of the displaced, this especially vulnerable group of asylum seekers who require special protection – the UK House of Lords in the Roma Rights case, facing up to a policy and practice clearly discriminatory by reference to race; the UK Supreme Court in EM (Eritrea), recognizing that any real risk of prohibited treatment, not just a systemic failure, was sufficient to require non-removal under Dublin; the European Court of Human Rights in M.S.S. v Belgium and Greece, also on Dublin transfers, but also on knowledge and risk, among others, and on the right to an effective remedy; and again in Hirsi v Italy; and the Australian High Court in Plaintiff M70. Australia once actively promoted temporary refuge, then turned to mandatory detention as supposedly some sort of deterrent to boat arrivals; when that seemed to have little effect, it tried to emulate some of the interdiction practice. Interestingly till now, and as in the early days of US interdiction, it has expressly recognized its basic obligations towards the intercepted, and its goal, in theory, has been to accommodate non-refoulement, but to deny on-shore processing and even, from time to time, on-shore solutions. What the M70 decision of the Australian High Court reveals, however, is that international obligations are difficult to wish away onto other States. In its earlier dealings with the remote island nation of Nauru, Australia had clearly been the principal in a ‘principal-agent’ relationship, paying the full costs of detention accommodation of the intercepted, relying on Nauru and distance to keep lawyers and journalists at bay, but impliedly accepting that it remained responsible internationally. Behind M70, though, there was different thinking. It involved an agreement – intentionally not a binding treaty – to trade asylum seekers: 800 to go to Malaysia, 4000 to be resettled out of Malaysia over four years. The domestic legal background was a provision of the Migration Act which anticipated that the Minister would make a declaration, identifying a State as appropriate for such an arrangement, and as able to provide the requisite level of protection. The High Court placed this agreement firmly within the context of an effort by Australia to ensure that its international obligations were met; but as a ‘protection exercise’, this meant that, as a matter of domestic law and statutory construction, Australia was obliged to ensure that those transferred enjoyed legal protection of their rights, not just practical protection; what is more, this meant more than just non-refoulement, but the protection also of other, Convention-related rights in the State of intended destination.

YLS Sale Symposium: The Globalization of High Seas Interdiction–Sale’s Legacy and Beyond

[Guy S. Goodwin-Gill is a Senior Research Fellow, All Souls College, Oxford and Professor of International Refugee Law, University of Oxford.]

Before Sale, before Haitian interdiction even, there was ‘piracy’ off the coast of Thailand, tolerated and encouraged locally as a deterrent to landing; there was towing out to sea, even of unseaworthy vessels; there was the blind eye turned to the plight of those in distress; and somewhere in-between was the refusal to allow disembarkation of the rescued – an exercise of legal competence on a matter regulated in the past by practice and expectation, but never written into law.

No, there is nothing new here, and many are the ways by which States have sought to keep others away from their shores, particularly those in search of refuge. And yet despite the many novel forms of interdiction, I do not share many of the premises on which this conference appeared to be based. For example, I do not think that Sale itself has influenced the practice of States in any meaningful way. It may have encouraged elements within States to push the envelope of legality, but looking around at what goes on in the name of ‘migration management’, it’s hard to believe that they need any encouragement.

Nor do I think that courts which clarify the legal limits to permissible State action thereby invite executives just to look for other ways to avoid law and obligation. They do, of course, but that’s part of the tension inherent in societies operating under the rule of law. Nor do I think that the judgment of the Supreme Court in Sale counts for anything juridically significant, other than within the regrettably non-interactive legal system of the United States. Here, the Court ruled for domestic purposes on the construction of the Immigration and Nationality Act. What it said on the meaning of treaty was merely dictum and the Court was not competent –in at least two senses – to rule on international law.

At best, the judgment might constitute an element of State practice, but even here its international relevance can be heavily discounted. The Court failed, among others, to have regard to the binding unilateral statements made by the US when interdiction was first introduced, and the ten years of consistent practice which followed. And as any student of international law will tell you, practice and statements of this nature are highly relevant, particularly when against interest.

UNHCR, moreover, which is responsible for supervising the application of the 1951 Convention/1967 Protocol, protested the judgment at the time and has consistently maintained the position set out in its amicus brief to the Supreme Court (and in earlier interventions with the US authorities). Significantly, no other State party to the treaties has objected to UNHCR’s position, though the forum and the opportunity are readily available, such as the UNHCR Executive Committee, ECOSOC, or the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly.