Displacing guilt and delegating violence: the EU’s ethical failure on externalization and migration management in Morocco

Abstract

This thesis critically interrogates the European Union’s strategy of externalizing its borders through migration agreements with Morocco, analysing the legal frameworks, political dynamics, and human rights implications that underpin this partnership. Framed by a growing body of critical migration scholarship, the study explores how Morocco, a country lacking a comprehensive national asylum system and consistently criticised for grave human rights violations, has come to play the role of one of Europe’s southern gatekeepers. Through an in-depth examination of bilateral and multilateral agreements, such as the EU-Morocco Mobility Partnership, the European Neighbourhood Policy, and the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa; this research illustrates how European migration governance relies on the delegation of border control to third countries, effectively displacing responsibility for violations occurring beyond its territorial borders. The thesis argues that this model of migration control has resulted in the systemic abuse, racialization, and marginalisation of Sub-Saharan migrants in Morocco. As evidenced by widespread reports and field data, these migrants are subjected to arbitrary detention, forced displacement, and racialised violence, at the hands of Moroccan authorities acting with the financial and political backing of the EU. Events such as the 2022 Melilla massacre, the Ceuta mass pushbacks, and ongoing police raids and deportations are not isolated incidents, but rather manifestations of a broader structural dynamic wherein human rights are subordinated to securitarian and geopolitical interests. By analysing these developments through a human rights lens, the study exposes how the EU’s strategy enables violations to be outsourced to Morocco, allowing the EU to conceal its role behind a partner state while evading direct legal accountability. Ultimately, this thesis contends that the EU’s outsourcing of border control to a non-EU country that fails to meet European human rights standards represents a dangerous erosion of legal norms and moral responsibility. It calls into question the coherence of the EU’s proclaimed commitment to human rights and reveals the paradox of a migration regime that, in attempting to manage mobility, reproduces violence, inequality, and legal impunity at its margins. In doing so, the thesis not only exposes the ethical and legal contradictions at the heart of EU-Morocco cooperation but also contributes to broader debates on mobility justice, racialised borders, and the externalization of Europe’s migration regime.