Entre a defesa da soberania e os direitos humanos: o Estado westphaliano frente à atuação da ONG Sea-Watch

Abstract

The dissertation highlights the role of the non-governmental organization (NGO) Sea-Watch as a case study and aims to discuss the limits of state sovereignty in the face of the problems brought by the flows of migrants who today seek the European Union. Sea-Watch has been operating since 2015, carrying out rescue operations and providing medical assistance to migrants in the Mediterranean Sea. It was created in Germany and caught the attention of the international media when, in 2019, it docked a ship off the Italian coast and contravened orders from the then Minister of Interior Matteo Salvini. Carola Rackete, the vessel's captain, claimed that conditions on the ship were unsustainable and that she acted in this way to save lives. Rackete was arrested for contempt but released by an Italian judge a few days later. The NGO has been producing reports on the lives lost and playing an awareness-raising role about what is happening in the Mediterranean, a space seen by the organization as “one of the deadliest frontiers in the world”. In the reports produced, the German NGO also demands a more assertive position from the European Union regarding the reception of refugees, that is, migrants who are forced to move. For these reasons, Sea-Watch is central to this work, which points to the flexibilization of State power according to the parameters of Westphalian sovereignty proposed by Stephen Krasner (1999).