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II. Key Recommendations

Detailed recommendations are presented at the end of this report.

To the Government of Libya

• Adopt and implement legislation to fulfill Libya’s asylum obligations under domestic laws – the Constitutional Proclamation, Great Green Charter for Human Rights and the Law on Enhancing Freedom – and international conventions to which Libya is party. Above all, introduce laws to respect the absolute prohibition on refoulement and to establish an effective, fair and lawful asylum procedure.

• Monitor conditions in all detention facilities housing migrants and possible asylum seekers, and criminally prosecute guards and other officials who physically abuse or otherwise mistreat detainees.

• Sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and allow the agency to perform its functions freely in Libya, including by granting it unfettered access to all immigration detention facilities.

• Establish effective and accessible mechanisms by which non-nationals facing expulsion may challenge both their detention and expulsion on human rights as well as immigration grounds. Until such mechanisms are in place, suspend all expulsions.

• Present all migrants, asylum seekers and refugees taken into custody on non-immigration offenses promptly before a judicial authority, and charge them with a recognizable criminal offense or release them.

• Hold foreign nationals detained for immigration or non-immigration-related offences in conditions that conform to international minimum standards.

To the European Union

To E.U. Member States

• Refrain from expelling third-country (non-Libyan) nationals to Libya until Libya’s treatment of migrants meets international human rights standards: ending physical abuse and other mistreatment, protecting the rights of refugees and avoiding forced return to countries where the individual is at risk of torture.

• Ensure that all national measures to prevent unauthorized entry and residence and the removal of undocumented residents from the territory of the European Union fully respect human rights and refugee law.

To E.U. Institutions and Member States

• Encourage Libya to 1) ratify the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol; 2) adopt a national asylum law; and 3) formally recognize UNHCR.

• Apply strict human rights conditionality to any cooperation with the Libyan government on migration (including border control), such that the observance of human rights, and the rights of refugees and migrants in particular, are dramatically improved.

To the Government of Italy¹

• Ensure there are no more mass expulsions of third-country nationals to Libya, which violate Italian law, as well as European and international human rights law.

• Grant UNHCR, human rights and legal advocacy NGOs, lawyers, journalists and other independent observers access to all reception, identification and detention centers in Italy.

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