The States of the Maghreb and the European Union found guilty of systematic violations of international law and crimes against humanity

Watch here the streaming of the announcement of the judgment and the press conference.

This 56th session focused on "the violation of the human rights of migrants by the States of the Maghreb, the European Union, and several of its Member States", following a request submitted by 54 organizations represented by the Maghreb Social Forum, the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights (FTDES), and the Moroccan Alternatives Forum (FMAS). It builds on the work carried out by the 45th session of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (2017–2020), which addressed violations of the rights of migrants in Europe.

During the public hearings, held in Palermo as part of the Sabir Festival from 23 to 25 October 2025, lawyers, experts, witnesses, and victims took turns presenting evidence that was examined by the Tribunal (see here video recordings of the three days of hearings in October 2025). The judgment delivered on Tuesday, 31 March represents a symbolic step forward, enabling the recognition, by a people’s tribunal, of the crimes perpetrated against migrants.

The Tribunal calls for these extremely serious violations of fundamental rights to be examined by national and international judicial authorities, emphasizing that international law and national legislations constitute a robust body of texts protecting the rights of migrants, the issue being that “rights recognized in theory are violated daily in practice.” It is therefore less a matter of developing new legal frameworks than of contributing to the concrete enforceability of existing legal norms, which are constantly flouted for political reasons.

Read here the full judgement (36 p., in French))

Summary of the judgment

1. Presentation of the indictment

The first part of the judgment presents the indictment, drafted by a coalition of civil society organizations in which members of Migreurop were actively involved. It states that "the facts presented are the result neither of accident nor negligence, but of a conscious, shared, and systemic political will to turn migrants into targets of transnational repression, in the most absolute disregard for international law. The States of the Maghreb, several Member States of the European Union, as well as the European Union itself, have implemented—directly or by delegation—migration policies based on pushbacks, abandonment, arbitrary detention, discrimination, criminalization, and externalization. These practices have led to serious, persistent, and widespread violations of peremptory legal norms, including the right to life, the principle of non-refoulement, the prohibition of torture, the right to an effective remedy, and equality before the law."

The indictment called on the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal to rule "that Libya and the European Union be formally condemned for crimes against humanity [and] that the States of the Maghreb be condemned for serious and recurrent violations of human rights, including: acts of torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, arbitrary deprivation of liberty, collective expulsions, violations of the home, infringements of economic, social, cultural, and environmental rights, as well as specific violations of children’s rights, in contradiction with their international commitments."

2. Historical contextualization of racist policies in the Maghreb

The second part of the judgment revisits the historical origins of racism in the Maghreb, situating these violations within a long history of persecution and discrimination against Black populations of sub-Saharan origin. Slavery and the slave trade practiced by Arab and Berber populations structured North African societies by confining Black populations to subordinate positions. The Tribunal highlights that “violations of migrants’ rights are ideologically underpinned by the systemic dimension of racism that runs through all North African societies, but also by authoritative discourses, the most emblematic of which is that of Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed in 2023.”

3. The facts

The third part presents the facts brought forward during the hearings, in which a substantial body of direct testimonies was presented, alongside audiovisual materials, official documents, and independent expert reports. This evidence attests to acts of arbitrary detention, torture, inhuman treatment, and failure to provide assistance, particularly with regard to detention centers and practices of torture in Libya; the continuum of violence extending from detention in Libya to criminalization in Europe; failure to provide assistance at sea and attacks against rescue operations; and finally pushbacks, abandonment in the desert, and racial violence in Tunisia. The evidence presented establishes that the violence inflicted on migrants is accompanied by a specific and organized repression targeting those who assist them, relying on the criminalization of civil society in Tunisia and Algeria, as well as at the transnational level. The Tribunal also notes instances of externalization of European migration policies in North African states, as well as deadly collective pushbacks (as illustrated by the case of Melilla). Finally, it highlights in Libya the existence of a system of pushbacks (pull-backs), detention, trafficking, and exploitation, where torture, arbitrary detention, modern slavery, and rape are concentrated, carried out by militias and made possible and sustained by arrangements of security and migration cooperation.

4. Legal analysis

The fourth and final part presents a legal analysis of these facts in light of international law. It first examines violations attributable to States, as subjects legally responsible for compliance with international law. The States implicated are Tunisia, Libya, Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, Germany, Italy, France, Greece, Spain, and Malta, as well as the European Union. Drawing on a broad set of international conventions and covenants, the PPT characterizes the violations committed against Black migrants from Sub-Saharan African states as serious crimes against peremptory norms of international law: failure to provide assistance and intentional shipwrecks; arbitrary detention, torture, and inhuman or degrading treatment; systematic violations of the principle of non-refoulement; racial and ethnic discrimination and the racist criminalization of migration; the criminalization of solidarity with migrants; the externalization of borders and the unlawful delegation of sovereign functions; and violations of the rights of migrant children.

It then turns to the possible qualification of crimes against Humanity, within the meaning of Article 7 of the Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), thereby implying the individual criminal responsibility of perpetrators. Although the Tribunal did not gather sufficient evidence to establish the individual responsibility of specific actors, the witnesses heard provided undeniable evidence that the crimes committed result from specific choices made by individuals, who should be held criminally accountable for their actions. With regard to Libya, international criminal justice has already opened investigations and issued several arrest warrants against leaders of Libyan militias responsible for the most atrocious crimes. In light of the evidence that emerged during the hearings, the Tribunal considers that there are grounds to suspect the commission of such crimes in other Maghreb countries. European countries have knowingly financed the perpetrators of crimes: this therefore constitutes complicity, or even aiding and abetting crimes against Humanity. This indirect responsibility does not exclude the individual responsibility of European leaders for complicity in crimes against Humanity committed against migrants.

Conclusion

The Tribunal concludes that the obligations of States and their institutions, clearly set out by the jury, constitute an absolute priority that must translate into operational measures aimed at preventing such grave crimes from being followed by silence, impunity, and the repetition of criminal behavior.

In the fundamental logic of the PPT, judging the gravity of the crimes committed consists above all in "giving voice to and making visible the right to life and dignity of peoples who, through their representatives, have been the true protagonists and judges of this process.”

This judgment and the indictment must therefore be understood as a first step and as an instrument to stimulate initiatives that broadly engage public opinion, and that go beyond the barriers of silence, hatred, and marginalization surrounding migration, which create a legal vacuum and an atmosphere of rejection.