Migration, Seafarers and the Humanitarian-Security-Economic Regimes Complex at Sea

Abstract

Undocumented migration across the maritime space poses different challenges to the maritime industry. By focusing on a hitherto overlooked group, seafarers, the chapter attempts to set their experiences in the maritime security research agenda by using the Mediterranean scene as a demonstrative case study. The chapter highlights the normative dilemma and conceptual limitation of reading undocumented migration at sea through a security lens alone. Instead, by focusing on the experiences of seafarers in relation to migrants at sea, the chapter draws from the literature on international regime complexity to frame the socio-legal, political and economic environment seafarers inhabit and operate in vis-à-vis migrants as a ‘humanitarian-security-economic regimes complex’. Using examples from the Mediterranean Sea, the chapter argues that the humanitarian, security and economic regimes within the complex place contradicting expectations on seafarers which entail significant tensions and lead to trade-offs such as instances of non-rescue. The chapter, thus, calls for more research into the experiences of seafarers which takes into account the nuances of the humanitarian, security and economic challenges they face when encountering migrants at sea.