States in the global north have been seeking to create a distance between them and migrants drowning or being abused, in an effort to avoid jurisdiction. Can international criminal law or the civil rights of Search and Rescue NGOs create a bridge for accountability? ICL's ability to also address "banal crimes against humanity" and to express their injustice makes it interesting for strategic litigation, while activists exercising their sincerely held beliefs by performing Search and Rescue may be bringing human rights jurisdiction into the "legal black holes" at sea.
In this GLJ Shorts episode, Yannis Kalpouzos and Itamar Mann present their articles "International Criminal Law and the Violence against Migrants" and "The Right to Perform Rescue at Sea: Jurisprudence and Drowning." Both articles appeared in the Special Issue "Border Justice: Migration and Accountability for Human Rights Violations" in GLJ vol. 21:3 in April 2020. Interview by German Law Journal editor Nora Markard, editing by Marlene Stiller.