# Equal Rights Beyond Borders

Equal Rights Beyond Borders is a charitable organization, founded in 2016, headquartered in Berlin, Germany, and Athens, Greece, with additional offices on the Greek islands Chios and Kos. It offers free legal support to people on the move and asylum seekers, particularly towards the reunion of families and helping with visa procedures. Beyond this, it also offers assistance in cases of detention, and where there is need for access to social rights, and its lawyers take on cases of severe human rights violations. With these aims it both represents specific clients and also takes on certain strategic cases where litigation may help draw attention to more general issues. Therefore it operates in Greek and German and European courts.
In 2023 it started a project supporting survivors of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), in the asylum procedure, in criminal proceedings and matters of family law.
Equal Rights Beyond Borders is partnering where appropriate with other organizations in Greece, Germany and at European Union (EU) level. In 2022 they published a joint report with HIAS Greece, addressing the Border Procedures on the Greek island.
Among the Equal Rights Beyond Borders co-founders was the lawyer, human rights activist and current Bundestag member Clara Bünger, who established the organizations first office on the Greek island of Chios.
It is in receipt of grant funding from a number of humanitarian organizations, including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

## Structure

The organization consists of two separate legal entities in Germany and Greece. The work is coordinated by a transnational management board. The international expert advisory board includes national and international lawyers experienced in refugee and migration law, as well as journalists and church representatives. Among them from Germany are Professors Anna Lübbe and Nora Markard, as well as Professor Violetta Moreno-Lax from Queen Mary University of London.

## History

In 2016, the EU-Turkey declaration of March 18, 2016 was signed. This declaration of intent on the admission and repatriation of refugees led to thousands of refugees being stuck on the Greek islands and prevented them from traveling to the European mainland. As a result, the so-called EU hotspots that had existed since 2015 effectively became detention and deportation centers.
Against this backdrop, some young lawyers trained in Germany traveled to the Greek island of Chios in a spontaneous show of solidarity to provide legal support to asylum seekers arriving there by boat. In coordination with Greek lawyers, a solidarity network was set up, initially under the name Refugee Law Clinics Abroad. As a result, young law students from Germany now regularly came to Chios to offer free legal advice for a few weeks. In 2016, the non-profit, registered association Equal Rights Beyond Borders was founded co-founded by Clara Bünger, now a member of the German Bundestag, who helped open and set up the organization's first office on Chios in 2017. This resulted in one of the first NGO-run legal information centers on Chios.
The organization opened its office in Athens in 2018 and an office in Berlin in 2019. Since 2021, its lawyers have also been supporting refugees from an office on the Greek island of Kos. A new detention camp was previously opened on the island of Kos by Greece, which serves as a deportation prison. The conditions in the camp have been criticized several times in the past by journalists and human rights organizations. In addition to the living conditions, which are generally described as inhumane, the detention of families, children and vulnerable people, such as pregnant women or victims of sexualized violence, was particularly criticized. In February 2023, the organization criticized the detention of minors on Kos together with terre des hommes.

## Work

Since its foundation, the organization has also been trying to enforce the human rights of asylum seekers at Europe's external borders with the help of strategic litigation in order to draw attention to their situation and improve it. It offers free legal support for refugees, particularly with regard to family reunification and visa procedures. It also offers support in cases of detention and access to social rights. To this end, the lawyers of Equal Rights Beyond Borders represent clients before Greek and German courts.
Its lawyers also represent clients in proceedings before the ECtHR in cases of serious human rights violations under the ECHR. It regularly publishes own publications, including expert opinions on the human rights situation of refugees in Greek detention camps.
In February 2022, lawyers from the organization made two submissions to the then UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants on the issue of the human rights impact of safe third country practices on Kos and Chios and the issue of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the human rights of asylum seekers on Kos and Chios. The reports became part of the report "Human rights violations at international borders: trends, prevention and accountability", which was submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council at its 50th session.

## Media attention

The organization's lawyers are experts in the field of asylum and migration law and the enforcement of human rights. In interviews, they comment on the situation of human rights and the rule of law in Europe, criticize the EU's migration policy as a "policy of deterrence" and the consequences of the EU-Turkey deal for people n the move on the Greek islands in the Aegean Sea. In 2023, they participated in the discussion about the investigation of one of the worst boat accidents in the Mediterranean with hundreds of deaths and also criticized the US-American migration policy in the course of this. The organization repeatedly criticized the planned reform of the Common European Asylum System, which was controversially discussed in Germany and Europe.

## Scientific engagement

Since its foundation, the organization has published a large number of expert reports on the human rights situation of people on the move in Greece. Some members write as authors for the Verfassungsblog on asylum and European law topics. They also speak at meetings and conferences throughout Germany and take part in panel discussions.
The organization has co-hosted several international conferences, for example in 2022 in Berlin, together with Amnesty International, Brot für die Welt, Diakonie Deutschland, European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, medico international, Miserior and Pro Asyl and in 2023 together with Diakonie Deutschland on Kos.

## Publications

* "Still detained and forgotten" – Update on Detention Policies, Practices, and Conditions on Kos“, Equal Rights Beyond Borders (Hg.), March 2024
* on Conference – Immigration Detention in the EU, Kos, 08.-10.06.2023, Equal Rights Beyond Borders (Hg.), September 2023
* "Still detained and forgotten" – Update on Detention Policies, Practices, and Conditions on Kos 2022/2023“, Equal Rights Beyond Borders (Hg.), February 2023
* "Extraordinary Measures" - How Greece used the COVID-19 pandemic as a Pretext for the Unlawful Detention of Asylum Seekers on Chios, Equal Rights Beyond Borders (Hg.), February 2023
* The State of the Border Procedure on the Greek Islands, Equal Rights Beyond Borders/HIAS Greece/Refugee Support Aegean (Hg.), October 2022
* Detained and Forgotten at the Gates of the EU - Detention of Migrants on the Island of Kos, Equal Rights Beyond Borders, November 2021