Losing the right to have rights: EU externalization of border control

The chapter is structured in the following manner: First I problematize a conventional and widespread view on border control by way of critical geography and the conceptual framework of borderscapes. Then I develop this framework by discussing the EU’s cooperation with third countries on border control as externalization and notes an often-stated EU justification for this policy. At this point I then illustrate how the borderscape model is capable of appraising a number of central and worrisome developments and restructuring processes, which have taken place in the management of the EU borders. Thus, I trace and discuss the European policy drive to export migrant detention camps to North Africa in the period up to the rebellions, which toppled Maghreb rulers like Gaddafi, Ben Ali and Mubarrak. Thereafter, I complement these findings with attention to the creation and major operations of the Frontex Agency, and, finally, how the use of deportations has been systematized and the dynamics of the EUROSUR system. At the end I conclude that analyses of these reconfigurations of the EU borderscapes’ control infrastructure show how the union’s border control is multi-local, relational and does not create protection elsewhere for vulnerable migrants. Rather, I claim, the European border control has systematized
violations elsewhere and thus undermine both European and African states’
willingness to protect the rights of migrants.