The criminalization of humanitarianism has become prevalent throughout the Global North.
Overbroad definitions of the crimes of migrant smuggling and the facilitation of irregular entry, transit and stay are commonplace, despite their well-known perverse effects on the human rights of organizers and civil society at large. The “crimmigration” paradigm (Stumpf 2006) is so pervasive that there is little political debate on the adequacy of a criminal law response to solidarity-inspired engagements with non-citizens, especially those in an irregular situation. Countries of destination have normalized hostility vis-à-vis (irregular) migrants and those supporting them and firmly entrenched it in the legal regime. Against this background, this paper—part of a collective trans-disciplinary project on migration, solidarity and the role of law to appear in the American Journal of International Law—discusses the potential of organised (legal) resistance in opposing (legal) structures of oppression of irregular migration in Europe and elsewhere. After expanding on the features and function of law as a structure of control, used by States to criminalize solidarity, it shows how certain activists and grass-roots organisations have responded to this ongoing criminalization through a solidaristic mobilization of the law that challenges the State’s claim to monopoly over legal interpretation. By reclaiming the law and taking it in an egalitarian direction, these solidaristic interventions transform the law into a site of contestation. The aim is to demonstrate how law may serve as a solidarity-building tool and a space of resistance through solidarity-based (legal) mobilization.
Violeta Moreno-Lax is Full Professor of Law and inaugural director of the Centre for the Legal Study of Borders, Migration and Displacement: (B)OrderS at Queen Mary University of London, where she also co-founded and co-directed the Centre for European and International Legal Affairs (CEILA). She specialises in international and EU law at the intersection with border violence, security, and human rights. She regularly consults for UN agencies, the EU institutions, and other organisations active in these fields. Her work has been cited by leading courts, including the Court of Justice of the European Union or the Belgian Conseil d’État. She is Visiting Professor of the College of Europe, legal adviser and founding member of de:border, focusing on strategic litigation, and sits in the Editorial Boards of European Journal of Migration and Law and International Journal of Refugee Law. Professor Moreno-Lax currently holds a Ramón y Cajal excellence grant (2022-27) by the Spanish government to conduct research into border violence, solidarity, resistance, and the role of law.