Externalisation Partnerships and Migration Induced by Climate: Implications of EU Policies and the Evolving Law

Externalisation is a process of shifting functions of migration control usually undertaken by the state to third countries in exchange of some political or financial gain. Externalisation partnerships including the outsourcing of migration control functions to third countries are increasingly popular for the EU and its Member States for the management of migratory flows. However, several states towards which the EU is outsourcing its migration control functions and effectively diverting the flows, have declared climate emergencies which often cause climate induced migration. The paper aims to explore the implications of externalisation partnerships for the countries with which the EU makes deals through the lens of increasingly pressing and unresolved problems caused by climate change. Is climate change and migration induced by it another crises and challenge that the EU is again raising the walls of Fortress Europe against? Is the EU turning a blind eye to climate refugees and other migrants and are externalisation policies indirectly contributing to the denial of urgent protection for climate migration? These are some of the questions that the paper aims to explore by resorting the evaluation of the emerging international and EU legal framework for the protection of climate refuges vis-à-vis the assessment of externalisation agreements.