The EUNAVFOR MED anti-smuggling mission, Operation Sophia, ended in March 2020 and is largely viewed to have failed in its objective of ‘disrupting the business model’ of migrant smugglers in the Mediterranean region. The mission relied on purported enforcement powers in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the 2000 Migrant Smuggling Protocol to seize and destroy stateless smuggling vessels on the high seas. Despite repeated claims to such powers by the European Union, neither treaty provides a strong jurisdictional basis for seizing stateless smuggling vessels outside territorial waters. However, ambiguous drafting in the Migrant Smuggling Protocol viably permits some claims to extraterritorial enforcement jurisdiction over stateless smuggling vessels on the high seas, and the European Union has relied on this ambiguity to tackle migrant smuggling. This article argues that the recent European Union anti-smuggling operations, most notably Operation Sophia, have reinterpreted the ambiguous term ‘appropriate measures’ in the Migrant Smuggling Protocol as permitting the states parties to exercise enforcement jurisdiction over stateless smuggling vessels at sea.

EUNAVFOR MED 反走私任务“索菲亚行动”于 2020 年 3 月结束，人们普遍认为其未能实现地中海地区移民走私者“破坏商业模式”的目标。该任务依靠 1982 年《联合国海洋法公约》和 2000 年《偷渡移民议定书》中所谓的执法权，在公海扣押并摧毁无国籍走私船只。尽管欧盟一再声称拥有此类权力，但这两项条约都没有为扣押领海以外的无国籍走私船只提供强有力的管辖依据。然而，《偷运移民议定书》中模糊的起草实际上允许对公海上的无国籍偷运船只行使域外执法管辖权，而欧盟正是依靠这种模糊性来解决移民偷运问题。本文认为，欧盟最近的反走私行动，尤其是索菲亚行动，重新解释了《偷运移民议定书》中含糊不清的术语“适当措施”，允许缔约国对海上无国籍走私船只行使执法管辖权。