What we do

Our Story

Since 2014, the European Union has been orchestrating racialized and deterrence-based migration policies, inflicting mass violence on people on the move along its external borders. In the past decade, more than 30,000 asylum seekers were killed by drowning, more than 150,000 survivors were captured and forcibly transferred to torture camps, and more than 90,000 children, women and men were abducted from EU soil by EU agents, and abandoned at sea to drown. These widespread and systematic attacks, directed against a singled out civilian population, share one objective: to prevent arrivals to Europe at all costs, while EU institutions and agencies such as Frontex, Europol and the EU Commission are enjoying full impunity.

In 2021, activists and lawyers founded front-LEX to terminate this impunity. Through cutting-edge strategic litigation before national, EU, European and international Courts, the non-profit organisation seeks to bring policy change, protect and provide remedy to victims, and hold EU bodies and officials to account for their heinous crimes against people fleeing armed conflicts and persecution.

While other organizations seek to protect the rights of people on the move by capturing the responsibility of EU Member States, front-LEX is primarily focused on cultivating novel and alternative forms of responsibility, in an attempt to hold to account EU institutions, bodies, and officials. This focus reflects the organization's political understanding that, in situations involving multiple actors jointly executing serious human rights violations, the complicity of EU actors constitutes an indispensable enabler and legitimizer for any Member State that may act as their partner in crime.

front-LEX is a fast-moving organization. In just a few years of activity, it has filed numerous legal actions before European and international Courts. front-LEX Filed the 1st human rights case against Frontex, the 1st damages claim on behalf of a 'push-back' victim, the 1st refoulement case of an EU citizen, the 1st case to challenge EU policy in the Aegean Sea, the 1st case to challenge Frontex collaboration with Libyan militias, the 1st case criminalizing the collaboration of the Italian government with Libyan human trafficking, and 122 cases implicating EU and Member States officials with Crimes Against Humanity.

Through this work, front-LEX has secured landmark changes in EU law, setting – for the first time – new precedents on the method, standard, and burden of proof in 'pushback' cases, precedents that secure the access of victims of EU policies to the Courts.

 

Key Litigations

• We filed the first-ever human rights case against Frontex (CJEU).

• We filed the first-ever damages lawsuit of a pushback survivor against Frontex (CJEU).

• We filed the first-ever case of a pushback of an EU citizen (ECtHR).

• We filed a case concerning the push-back policy at the Evros river (ECtHR).

• We initiated a pre-litigation procedure under Article 265 TFEU to oblige the European Commission to dismiss Frontex's Executive Director, Fabrice Leggeri. He resigned before proceedings had to be brought.

• We filed a Court motion to oblige Frontex to disclose the damning OLAF report against Frontex (CJEU).

• We filed a legal action against the new Frontex Director, Aija Kalnaja, to immediately suspend or terminate Frontex's operations in the Aegean Sea Region, inter alia, based on the OLAF report (CJEU).

• We continue working with our partners on the pending case against European officials implicated with Crimes Against Humanity in connection with EU policy in the Central Mediterranean and Libya (ICC).