The Amnesty International briefing examines the impact of the Italy/Albania Agreement on migration on the human rights of the people it affected since its entry into force in January 2024.
It also documents the challenges faced by lawyers, courts, monitoring mechanisms and civil society in exercising their role for the people affected.
We expressed concern about the human rights risks that the Italy-Albania Agreement implied from its inception, including for the safety and liberty of the individuals subjected to it. The organization also criticized the measure as a form of externalization of migration management and asylum processing.
Amnesty International has long warned that initiatives aimed at externalizing migration management set out an unprecedented curtailment of the right to asylum in the EU, risk resulting in a series of human rights violations ranging from arbitrary detention to refoulement, demonstrate the bloc’s weakened commitment to sharing responsibility over refugee protection globally, amount to a departure from international and regional human rights standards and could undermine the integrity of the global international protection framework.
The briefing indicates that the people being subjected to—and harmed by—this Agreement are predominantly racialized people, including from North Africa, Bangladesh, Ivory Coast, Gambia. Finally, we make recommendations to the Italian authorities to end the Agreement with Albania, which in and of itself jeopardizes human rights and is resulting in violations of Italy’s human rights obligations.
Read “Italy: Extraterritorial Migration Detention and Human Rights Obligations – The Agreement with Albania.”