1. Really happy that our recent @GLAN_LAW lawsuit against Italy gained so much media attention. This suggests that it will clearly generate discussion on border "externalization" practices -- in the central med, and more broadly.
2. However, it is also clear that political challenges abound. To name just one example from the coverage, note the title of the @washingtonpost piece: "Migrants Accuse Italy of Responsibility for Libyan Abuses"
3. In a few words, @washingtonpost expresses the view that the abuses are ultimately *Libyan*. It is of course true that those doing the torture, rape, and other physical violence are typically not Italians. But stopping there merely reflects prejudice of enormous dimensions.
4. This is a very central prejudice of our time and political culture. According to it, violence is individualized and perpetrated on a personal, corporal, level. But both theoretically and practically, that is precisely the point that needs to be countered.
5. We point the finger at Italy for creating the *structural conditions* for such abhorrent violence, and we believe such conditions cannot be ousted from the scope of human right law and human rights thinking. Making it possible to torture and rape is often as bad as the acts.
6. Furthermore, there is a certain peril in advancing the perception that *migrants* are accusing Italy. It is true that they feel, with all the weight of the accusation, that the most fundamental human dignity was destroyed.
7. But the jurisdictional argument that points to Italy's responsibility is not only theirs. It is just as much our own, as advocates and activists who have seen the ample evidence of Italian control over Libyan activities.
8. The danger in a title like @washingtonpost's is considerable, if migrants end up taking the heat of political opposition to this argument that may come with further violence. It should be "migrants and activists" that accuse Italy, not migrants alone.
9. I have already been accused here of being a George Soros humanitarian. Our action is surely based in humanitarianism, as it is in international human right law. But it must be said very clearly and candidly: we also purport to advance a political agenda!
10. At the basis of this agenda is a recognition of the value of human mobility, cross border solidarity, and a vision of multi-ethnic, multi-confessional, multi-cultural democratic communities.
11. Refugee rights are to be protected. Alongside that we must realize that unauthorized migration is often the only available option to fight against the contemporary unprecedented global distributional injustice.
