Belarus’s Weaponization of Migration Should Make Us Reevaluate the Extent of Crimes Against Humanity and Human Rights

Facing temperatures below freezing and bitter winter conditions, thousands of Middle Eastern and African migrants currently remain trapped between the tumultuous borders of Belarus and its EU neighbors. Many humanitarian groups have warned of imminent danger to the migrants if this humanitarian crisis, which has seen nearly 30,000 migrants attempt to illegally cross the Polish border since August, is not quickly resolved. Despite genuine reasons for their journey, the migrants have become unsuspecting pawns in an ever-growing political chess game between Belarus and its EU neighbors. More specifically, Belarus and its President Aleksander Lukashenko are being accused of facilitating and weaponizing such migration in an attempt to punish their geopolitical rivals in the EU. 

The accusations are relatively well-founded considering the litany of different immigration policies adopted by Belarusian authorities in recent months, including granting visas to migrants upon arrival and escorting migrants to the Polish border. Furthermore, many view this targeted influx of migrants as political retaliation for EU sanctions against Belarus for election fraud and repression of civil rights. Perhaps in hopes of destabilizing his enemies or deterring future sanctions, President Lukashenko is using migrants and their pursuit for safety as weapons in his geopolitical war against the West. Despite his already lackluster record in humanitarian governance, this blatant indifference for migrant safety represents an escalation in his disregard for human rights. If we are to deter other authoritarian leaders from employing such inhumane tactics in the future, then we must recognize the weaponization of migration streams as a crime against humanity and a violation of human rights.

Weaponized migration is the purposeful organization of a sudden influx of migrants into another country with the intent of causing political destabilization and exploiting the targeted country’s own humanitarian obligations against them. Made famous by Libyan leader Muammar Ghaddafi’s threat against the EU during the Second Libyan Civil War in 2011, weaponized migration has rarely been used due to the significant human devastation it can wrought. Despite this devastation, using migrants as political weapons is not officially considered a specific breach of human rights or a crime against humanity.    

This failure to codify its employment as a more serious crime can be rectified given a reinterpretation of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998), which provides the most expansive list of acts that constitute crimes against humanity. Prohibited acts include murder, forcible transfer of population, and persecution of an identifiable group among others. In its most technical sense, weaponized migration does not specifically fulfill these conditions as the offending party does not conduct such violence itself. But when analyzed through the lens of gross negligence and intent, it is difficult to argue that purposely placing refugees and migrants in an environment where they are likely to be killed, forcibly deported or persecuted, as demonstrated by the situation at the Belarus-Polish border, does not result in the same outcomes that the Rome Statute is attempting to prevent. If we were to adopt this interpretation of the Rome Statute, weaponized migration would be recognized for the serious harm it causes, albeit indirectly. Moreover, establishing its crime of humanity status is especially important to deter its future use as it can hold leaders themselves accountable and override the traditional personal immunity held by heads of sovereign countries, especially those like Belarus and President Lukashenko who do not take part in most international justice systems and courts. 

Recognizing the gravity of using migrants as weapons of war similarly requires a reframing of our traditional view of human rights, specifically around consent. In the same way in which we recognize that child soldiers cannot give consent to be active members of war and thus subjecting them to such conditions is a violation of their human rights, we must also recognize that migrants cannot give consent to be used as weapons of geopolitical warfare. This is because governments, like that of Belarus, provide incentives to the migrants, under false pretenses of humanitarian motives, to actively endanger their rights of life and safety through engaging in risky migration efforts. Overwhelmed by their fundamental pursuit of humane living conditions, migrants cannot recognize their use by the aggressor state in harming the country they are entering in nor are they adequately informed of the danger that such migration can pose. Though the more traditional human rights of the migrants are not being violated by the government, using the migrants as unwilling weapons of war places those more traditional rights in a more dangerous position. Thus, if we were to expand our view of human rights to include an emphasis on consent to be used in war, weaponized migration would be recognized for the actual risk that it poses to the unwilling migrants involved.      

I recognize that the reframing and expansion of crimes against humanity and human rights will always run the risk of making those viewed as traditional crimes/rights more obsolete. Afterall, if we make every crime equal in its level of seriousness, then we will be unable to apply the necessary amount of significance to acts of true horror such as genocide and enslavement. However, I believe that the risk of failing to deter leaders from using migrants as weapons presents a much graver threat to both the migrants themselves and the world in general. The use of economic sanctions or official condemnations to counter efforts to weaponize migration can be useful to an extent, but without a level of legal officiality, leaders like President Lukashenko will continue to employee their tactic with impunity and little fear of real repercussions. 

As planes with more migrants continue to land in Minsk, the EU must develop a strategy to counter President Lukashenko’s political attack. Though short-term efforts to manage the crisis like migrant resettlement may resolve this instance of weaponized migration, only a reframing and recodification of crimes against humanity and human rights will allow us to deter other authoritarian leaders in the future from using migrants as weapons of war.

The opinions expressed here are solely those of the author.