Legal regulations and traveller & migrant protection

PERSEUS contributes to Europe’s efforts to monitor illegal migration and combat related crime and goods smuggling by proposing a large scale demonstration of a EU Maritime surveillance System of Systems, on the basis of existing national systems and platforms, enhancing them with innovative capabilities and moving beyond EUROSUR’s 2013 expectations, addressing key challenges:  supporting the network created by National Contact Centres, Frontex and EMSA through increased capabilities, including transnational exchange of useful and available information, and associated procedures and mechanisms, thereby supporting the creation of a common information sharing environment  generation of a common situational picture  improved detection and identification of non collaborative/suspicious small boats and low flying aircraft  enhanced and increasingly automated detection of abnormal vessel behaviours, identification of threats and tracking of reporting and non-reporting vessels PERSEUS articulates this demonstration through 5 exercises grouped in 2 campaigns, implementing missions of drug trafficking and illegal migration control and delivering surveillance continuity from coastal areas to high seas. PERSEUS delivers a comprehensive set of validated and demonstrated recommendations and proposes standards. PERSEUS has assembled major users and providers, ensuring privileged access to existing surveillance systems and assets for an optimised coverage of the area of interest. These users will define, assess and validate the alignment of PERSEUS’s recommendations to their needs. PERSEUS also includes an evolution mechanism to enlarge the user base and integrate emerging technologies during its lifetime. PERSEUS will augment the effectiveness of operational capabilities of the existing systems – a relevant and coordinated contribution to the establishment of an integrated European-wide maritime border control system

EU trade, transport, tourism and economic development are directly dependent on open and safe seas and oceans. EU's maritime borders are widely spread including various topologies from open sea to semi-enclosed cabins with islands and islets. This poses great challenges that affect securing maritime border areas. Failing to protect against a wide array of maritime threats and risks may result in these areas becoming arenas for international conflicts, terrorism or organized crime, where smuggling, irregular immigration and drug trafficking are the most common ones. RANGER aims at re-enforcing EU by combining innovative Radar technologies with novel technological solutions for early warning, in view of delivering a surveillance platform offering detection, recognition, identification and tracking of suspicious vessels, capabilities exceeding current radar systems. It will be a platform, consisting of 2 radar technologies, a novel Over-The-Horizon Radar combined with a Multiple Input Multiple Output one implemented exploiting the latest photonics advancements, and an Early Warning System exploiting deep and adaptable machine learning schemes able to Automatically detect radar Targets. It safeguards seamless fitting and interoperability with CISE (enhanced maritime surveillance and cross border SaR operations), through the development of a CISE translation Gateway, exporting on-demand CISE services directly to end-users, by strengthening the information exchange between national authorities and the European Agency. RANGER leverages the experience of its consortium, a balanced blend of technology providers, domain experts and end-users, delivering a cost efficient, environmental friendly solution, abiding to regulations and legislation for the protection of human lives. Two pilot exercises are foreseen to thoroughly assess RANGER’s ability to deliver on its promises, enhancing its potential to become a flagship platform for the European Maritime Surveillance industry.

The research seeks to push the boundaries of our understanding of, and social and legal responses to, trafficking in illicit cultural objects. The global market in illicit cultural objects is a structure of relatively rich consumers at one end of the supply chain (collectors, dealers, museums) and relatively poor looters at the other end, in source countries characterised by high levels of the 'natural resource' of cultural objects and low levels of policing resource to devote to their protection against looting (i.e. usually illegal excavation) and other forms of theft. While there has been some research into the market, compared to other international criminal markets such as the drugs trade, very little is known about the motives and activities of participants in the international trade in illicit cultural objects, their trading norms and routines, the pricing structures and criminal mark-ups, mechanisms of smuggling used in this market in order to avoid detection at customs and by other law enforcement agencies, etc. Even such apparently simple matters as the relative size of the criminal side of the antiquities trade are not currently known. Structures of international, and domestic national, law and regulation have been established in response to the moral concern the illicit trade raises, rather than being based on an evidence-oriented investigation of the practical elements of the trade mentioned. While some of these regulatory efforts have had modest success, for the most part they have been a failure in stopping the illicit trade, which continues today. This research proposal establishes a multi-method and multi-sited programme of research which aims to gather and analyse all available evidence on the trade, produce new measures of size and illicit activity using innovative methodological approaches and new data sources, and conduct ethnographic research into the illicit trade. All these data sources will be used to devise best practice in regulation.

The index evaluates policy efforts against human trafficking in the three prime areas of prosecution, protection and prevention (3Ps) worldwide.

The index is based on the reports of the monitoring body of the Council of Europe Convention against Human Trafficking. GRETA stands for the Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings. It assesses compliance with 35 policy requirements on legal institutional framework, assistance protection, enforcement, prevention. Main focus: institutional capacity and operational performance of law enforcement. Restricted access.

"Flüchtlinge sind oftmals zugleich Täter, indem sie Migrationsdelikte begehen, und Opfer, wenn sie zur gezielten Ausbeutung nach Europa gebracht werden. Das Projekt widmet sich dem Problem, dass dieselben Flüchtlinge den Strafverfolgungsorganen in Deutschland und Österreich sowohl als Täter in Bezug auf Migrationsdelikte als auch als Opfer im Hinblick auf Menschenhandel, wenn sie zur gezielten Ausbeutung nach Europa gebracht werden, begegnen können. Opferschutzmaßnahmen kommen den Menschenhandelsopfern jedoch oft nicht zugute, weil sie den Strafverfolgungsbehörden und Gerichten vor allem als Täter auffallen. Im Rahmen des Projekts werden praktische Vorgehensweisen erarbeitet, die helfen zu vermeiden, dass Flüchtlinge in der derzeitigen Situation überhaupt erst zu Menschenhandelsopfern werden, und die dazu beitragen, Menschenhandelsopfer besser zu identifizieren und zu schützen. Strafrechtsdogmatisch werden die Ausgestaltung von Gesetzen und die Folgen der Gesetzesanwendung analysiert. Eine Bearbeitung der Probleme erfolgt empirisch (durch Fragebogen und Interviews), rechtsdogmatisch (durch rechtsvergleichende Gesetzes- und Entscheidungsanalyse) und rechtspolitisch (durch Erforschung der internationalen und supranationalen Vorgaben und Empfehlungen und ihrer Umsetzung) aus strafrechtlicher Sicht. Empirisch wird erhoben, ob das Problem der erhöhten Gefahr des Menschenhandels den Flüchtlingen selbst und den Behörden und Gerichten bewusst ist, und welche Präventions- und Schutzmaßnahmen für sinnvoll erachtet werden. Im Hinblick auf Zoll- und Strafverfolgungsbehörden und Gerichte wird empirisch erforscht, inwieweit den zuständigen Stellen Identifizierungsprobleme bekannt sind, wie die Praxis der Identifizierung von Menschenhandelsopfern derzeit aussieht und mit welchen Problemen die Praktiker in der derzeitigen Sondersituation konfrontiert sind. Strafrechtsdogmatisch wird analysiert, welcher Schutz »Opfer-Tätern« zukommt, insbesondere inwieweit Täter von Migrationsdelikten, die zugleich Menschenhandelsopfer sind, de lege lata und de lege ferenda zu verfolgen und zu bestrafen sind und inwieweit ihnen auch im Prozess gegen sie selbst in ihrer Tätereigenschaft Opferschutzmaßnahmen zu garantieren sind. Im Hinblick auf das in Deutschland mögliche Absehen von Strafe nach § 154c StPO wird hinterfragt, inwiefern diese Regelung angesichts der Tatsache zielführend ist, dass praktisch viele Menschenhandelsopfer aus Angst nicht mit den Strafverfolgungsbehörden kooperieren, und ob schon allein der Verdacht, dass eine Person ein Menschenhandelsopfer ist, eine Straffreiheit unter bestimmten Voraussetzungen rechtfertigen kann. Als Ergebnis sollen – auch im funktionalen Rechtsvergleich mit ausländischen Lösungsansätzen – rechtspolitische Vorschläge und Gesetzesentwürfe für die nationalen (deutschen und österreichischen) und internationalen Praktiker und Gesetzgeber erarbeitet werden. Ziel ist es, die Behörden und Gerichte zu entlasten und zugleich eine Eindämmung von Menschenhandelsopfern unter den Flüchtlingen zu bewirken und die Chance auf Identifizierung von Menschenhandelsopfern, die in der Regel – gerade wenn sie zugleich auch Täter eines Migrationsdelikts sind – ihre Situation nicht offenlegen, zu erhöhen."

The RESILAND initiative aims at implementing a 24-month process to reinforce participation, capacities and resilience of Children on the Move as key dimensions for their effective protection from trafficking and exploitation. 

DEMIG POLICY tracks more than 6,500 migration policy changes enacted by 45 countries around the world mostly in the 1945-2013 period. The policy measures are coded according to the policy area and migrant group targeted, as well as the change in restrictiveness they introduce in the existing legal system. The database allows for both quantitative and qualitative research on the long-term evolution and effectiveness of migration policies. DEMIG POLICY was compiled between 2010 and 2014 as part of the DEMIG project (Determinants of International Migration: A Theoretical and Empirical Assessment of Policy, Origin and Destination Effects). It tracks 6,500 migration policy changes (both immigration and emigration) in 45 countries, most of them enacted in the 1945-2013 period. DEMIG POLICY assesses for each policy measure whether it represents a change towards more restrictiveness (coded +1) or less restrictiveness (coded -1) within the existing legal system. Besides this main assessment of change in restrictiveness, every policy change is also coded according to the policy area (border control, legal entry, integration, exit), policy tool (recruitment agreements, work permit, expulsion, quota, regularization, resettlement, carrier sanctions, etc.), migrant group (low- and high-skilled workers, family members, refugees, irregular migrants, students etc.) and migrant origin (all foreign nationalities, EU citizens, specific nationalities etc.) targeted. The database has been compiled by the DEMIG team, in particular by Katharina Natter, Simona Vezzoli and Hein de Haas, and reviewed by national migration policy experts.

The last decades witnessed the ever growing effectiveness of Europe-subsidized border protection projects like SIVE and SIVICC. As maritime smuggling from Morocco towards the European borders of Portugal and Spain was combatted more effectively, the criminal modus operandi changed drastically, approaching air routes with cheap and small planes. New drone technology opens opportunity to both manned and unmanned airborne drug transports. Launched from any location and moving at low altitude and speed to mask their presence with the present clutter environment, drones can autonomously reach any landing site under nearly all circumstances. The ALFA system bridges this detection capability gap by drastically improving the situational awareness through the detection of LSS (Low, Small and Slow) manned and unmanned aircraft. ALFA is future-ready as technologies for drone detection will be a part of the system, which will use heterogeneous, easy-to-deploy mobile sensors based on several novel technologies. All sensor data, augmented by other existing sources of information, will be combined using evolved data fusion, providing accurate positional data for targets including eventual indication of the air vehicle type and reliable prediction of its landing site. This information will be communicated to the regional law enforcement units using a secure communication link and mobile device application, drastically improving the reaction time. Final ALFA capabilities will be demonstrated in a realistic operational context using relevant targets and in close cooperation with two principal end users taking part in the consortium. With their active participation, the ALFA system will make a significant contribution to the development of EUROSUR (in particular, cooperating with SIVE and SIVICC) and be suitable for a range of other missions and scenarios such as homeland and event protection and the protection of critical infrastructure.