ABSTRACT
In response to the so-called refugee crisis in 2015, the European Union (EU) launched the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF), a new funding instrument to sponsor projects that address the “root causes of instability, forced displacement and irregular migration and to contribute to better migration management” on the African continent. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) is one of the main implementing partners to execute such projects, particularly in North Africa. The chapter examines this new dimension of IOM’s involvement in the EU’s external migration governance from a perspective of justice. It argues that despite the EUTF’s holistic and long-term-oriented rhetoric, the IOM’s projects enable the EU to defend its interests in solving what it calls the problem of irregular migration within sovereign states. While the IOM claims to ensure migrants’ rights and protection, its work addresses them as objects of management and humanitarian aid. In North Africa, protection by the IOM merely means offering vulnerable migrants the possibility to “voluntarily return” to their countries of origin. This way, it becomes an act of mercy rather than a legally enforceable right. By categorizing and reorienting migrants’ trajectories in transit, the IOM helps to maintain globally unequal and unjust relations between states as well as their citizens – largely without being recognized as such.
