Securing the EU Border: What are Border Guards?

From 1999, the EU has become increasingly engaged with external border controls, now a shared responsibility with the Member States. Over this period, there has been a steady stream of human rights problems at the EU external borders, from failure to rescue people in distress at sea, the criminalisation of humanitarian assistance to migrants in distress, violence at EU land borders etc. The force used at EU external borders is justified on the grounds of protecting the EU’s security. This presentation will examine this claim from the perspective of the human rights rules applicable to policing and the use of force and how they apply to border guards (or not).