EU-Turkey deal on refugees unlawful: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed Barry Grossman, an international lawyer in Bali, about a committee of Greek judges saying that Turkey is unsafe for sending back Syrian refugees who arrive in the European country.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: First of all, according to many, and based on evidence on the ground, the West helped create the crises in the Middle East region. So why doesn’t the West show any responsibility in taking in these refugees or at least providing standard conditions for them?   

Grossman: Well that is the $64,000 Question as they say. Clearly there is a very easy way to stop the refugee crisis that is plaguing Europe and that is to stop fueling the Syrian conflict and accept the political status quo as it now is until that can be changed by lawful means in keeping with the will of the Syrian people.

Press TV: And of course the Greek judges are saying it will be unsafe to return the refugees to Turkey. Just what dangers are awaiting these refugees if they go back to Turkey?

Grossman: Let’s be clear. It is not just this panel of Greek judges; there is almost a universal opinion that has been expressed by the United Nations itself, by the Council of Europe, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, by pretty much every international NGO and almost every international expert on international law, a consensus of opinion that this self-serving deal made by policymakers in Europe and Turkey is unlawful. It is categorically unlawful. It violates the 1951 UN Convention on the Status of Refugees and the EU Convention on Human Rights along with a whole raft of other bits of legislation and international treaties.

It is in a nutshell illegal, yet what we see is the policymaking apparatus in Europe and the political apparatus trying to push home their agenda because as it is now they are clearly quite hostile to Greece at the best of times and they now see Greek as little more than a warehousing center and processing center for refugees but even that they would like to shift to Turkey.

Now international law is very clear about this. Refugees have a right to stay and be processed in accordance with their rights under European law. They cannot be moved forcefully either one by one or en masse to a third nation and even if they could, there is a consensus of opinion that Turkey is unsafe as a third nation to fulfill that function.

That is to say Turkey itself does not comply with European standards on human rights. It has a lot of domestic legislation which is also contrary to European standards and membership in the EU and perhaps most importantly it does not respect the right to non-refoulement it is called, that is the right of refugees not to be exposed to risks of being moved on back to the very place that they escaped from and becoming refugees or to some other place that is equally dangerous for them.

So there is no way to save this or polish this up, it is being something other than what it is. The deal struck for very selfish reasons between European policymakers and Turkey is illegal and there is no way to dress it up. The European community, however, that is the policymaking apparatus and the political apparatus, simply do not care. They are pushing their agenda. They need to of course be distinguished from the European people and indeed even the European legal institutions which are all almost universally putting forward quite a different and much more accurate position namely that this deal is unlawful.

The problem of course is that we now live in a new epic, a ... new era, not just in Europe but pretty much around the world in which the rule of law that we want to pretend to embrace has become a very distant and poor cousin to rule by policy and we now live in times where policy made typically in privately-funded think tanks trumps the law every time. So we have to wait and see whether the European policymaking apparatus will find the work around to this ruling by Greek judges but it seems quite clear they are not willing to accept it because as recently as Friday a number of EU foreign ministers came up and pressured Greece to speed up the process of moving refugees offshore or if you like out of their territory to Turkey.  

Press TV: In your first answer you said that the West should stop fueling the war in Syria but for how long do you think it can fuel this war?

Grossman: The problem of course is that the interests that are behind supporting this contrived conflict no matter what happens, no matter how ugly it gets, no matter how bad it gets, no matter how long it goes on, no matter who wins or loses, they as individuals profit. It is a very profitable undertaking. So that is the first problem we are up against.

Secondly, we have to understand what their goals are in order to answer to the question you asked and their goals are not necessarily to bring peace and stability and security to the region. In fact, all indications are quite the contrary that the goal essentially is as ever to balkanize Syria and of course many people, a lot of us have been saying this since the conflict erupted in full back in 2011.

So if the goal is to create instability in the region and continue this conflict, then the answer to your question is that it can go on forever. It can go on as long as it remains profitable and as long as it continues to serve the interests of those that are making this policy and that of course raises the question of what those interests are apart from being nearly financial and of course a lot of people observe that there seems to be a common ground in terms of interests between the Israeli agenda and the agenda being pursued by the Atlantic World political apparatus.

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