Articles for author: Stefano Zirulia

The Legacy of Kinsa

The CJEU’s judgment in Kinsa marks a rare rights-based correction to the EU’s punitive approach to migration. Prompted by a case from Italy, the Court confronts the criminalisation of those who cross borders caring for children. Rather than deferring to enforcement rationales, it centres fundamental rights and draws clear constitutional limits. The ruling opens a path to challenge overbroad criminalisation not just retrospectively, but at the level of legal design. In the shadow of ongoing EU reform efforts, Kinsa signals a shift: from border control to proportionality scrutiny.

26. Juni 2025

A New Step in the Greening of the Right to Life

In Cannavacciuolo and Others v. Italy, the European Court of Human Rights unanimously found a violation of Article 2 ECHR on account of the State’s failure to protect the right to life of residents in an area of Southern Italy known as the “Land of Fires” (Terra dei Fuochi). This is the first judgment linking a violation of the right to life to the prolonged exposure to pollutants released into the environment. The decisive element for the applicability of the right to life has been a shift in the Court’s approach to the causal link requirement that triggers a violation of Article 2. The Cannavacciuolo judgment should therefore be seen as a turning point for climate and environmental justice.

20. Februar 2025

, , , ,

Waiting for Kinsa

On 18 June 2024, the Court of Justice of the European Union will sit as a Grand Chamber in a hearing addressing the compatibility of the so-called Facilitators Package with the principle of proportionality set out in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (CFR). The Kinsa case (previously named Kinshasa) provides an opportunity for the CJEU to counteract the trend towards overcriminalisation of humanitarian action that has taken hold across the EU. This blog highlights the ways in which the Facilitator Package fails to take account of important fundamental rights and why the criminalization of solidarity that it has facilitated is not an inevitability but a political choice.

10. Juni 2024

, ,

Refoulement As A Crime

Last month, the Italian Court of Cassation upheld the (suspended) sentence of one year’s imprisonment of the shipmaster of the Italian ship Asso28. He was convicted of two offences of abandonment for returning and handing around 100 migrants over to the personnel of a Libyan patrol boat, including some unaccompanied minors and pregnant women, whom he had previously rescued in international waters within the Libyan SAR zone. The case constitutes the first time an individual was held criminally responsible for failing to fulfil the duty of non-refoulement. Until recently, the refoulement duty has only served to exclude the liability of shipmasters who had complied with it whenever they were accused of facilitating irregular immigration. This case indicates the emergence of a new function of the principle, namely that of grounding the criminal liability of those who violate it.

2. April 2024

, , , , , ,