Description
Spatial considerations have been effectively adopted into maritime security studies, ranging from historical analyses into the legal regime of UNCLOS regarding the governance of zones, to the High Risk Area associated with Indian Ocean piracy. This paper takes this spatial focus to the Central Mediterranean, considering how zones are strategically utilised to enforce EU maritime security, as it counters migration. The term Zonation Strategy is introduced to provide name and framework to the practice of adopting zones into security configurations. Search and rescue (SAR) zones are units of analysis, and are theorised not as fixed rescue-spaces, but as dynamic and politically charged. Empirically, this paper also introduces the term SAR frontier, to identify the type of zonation strategy employed in this particular configuration. It is herein stipulated that the EU engages in zonation strategy, whereby it strategically implements a SAR frontier at the meeting point of Libyan and EU SAR zones. It is at this SAR frontier that a type of boundary exists, based upon the legal assignment of rescue responsibility and obligation, which permits the EU to relinquish its own obligations, handing them over to the Libyan Coast Guard, thus preventing migrant arrivals and forcing maritime security enforcement southward.
