EU Lawlessness Law at the EU-Belarusian Border: Torture and Dehumanisation Excused by ‘Instrumentalisation’

This paper engages with the routine normalisation of mass violations of human rights at the EU–Belarusian border. The direct and indirect victimisation of the racialised ‘other’ on the Eastern border of the Union is a direct extension of the EU-sponsored war on the racialised passport-poor in the Mediterranean. Together, the two form one clear and coherent picture of flagrant mass rights abuse. This EU law approach has claimed more than 27,000 lives over the last eight years and left more than 120,000 innocent people captured and imprisoned, or enslaved and sold for ransom by the criminal proxies enlisted by the EU and its Member States. This dramatic situation has not arisen by chance. An array of legal techniques is deployed by the EU, specifically by FRONTEX, the European Commission and, albeit incidentally and to a lesser extent, the European Court of Justice—to make sure that the full brunt of the denial of the right to life and other vital rights of non-citizens is never presented as a violation of EU law. We call these legal techniques ‘EU lawlessness law’. Focusing on the situation at the EU–Belarusian border allows us to zoom in on the bespoke lawlessness solutions crafted and deployed there by the EU and its Member States. The gross violations of the law are rhetorically justified by the alleged instrumentalisation of migrants by the dictatorial Belarusian regime. Paradoxically, the latter emerges as a de facto partner of the EU and its Member States, in torturing numerous people in complete disregard of any of the legal guarantees that the Union professes to provide.