Niger’s Repeal of the 2015/36 Anti-Smuggling Law
In July 2023, Niger experienced a significant political shift following a military coup d’état. One of the effects of the coup d’état was the decision of the military authorities to abrogate the unpopular 2015/36 Anti-Smuggling Law adopted in 2015 and implemented since mid-2016. The abrogation of the law was requested by community representatives from the Agadez region– as reported by interlocutors but also confirmed by numerous commentators. The new military junta demonstrated a preference for meeting domestic demands and it therefore repealed the law.
This alert aims to examine the legal effects produced by the repealing of the law, which are often overlooked by those who believe that the greatest repercussion will be additional migrant arrivals in Europe.
Effects of the 2015 Law
In the first place, the adoption of the law was in part an answer to a deadly incident in the desert in 2013. On October 30, in northern Niger, 92 people died after they were stranded for several days because of a broken-down vehicle (37 women, 48 children and 7 men). The majority were originally from the Department of Kantché and were on their way to Algeria. The incident provoked a very strong reaction in Nigerien society and the authorities expressed the need to counter irregular migration and to protect migrants travelling through the desert. This resulted in the adoption of the Anti-Smuggling Law.
The law was widely viewed as having been adopted under pressure from the EU, although the bloc’s officials denied this. At the time, Mohamed Bazoum, the then Minister of Interior, explained that ‘the Europeans requested us to reduce the number of migrants that were entering Libya. Without the law, we didn’t have any way to do that.’ In 2015, the EU launched the 5 billion Euro Trust Fund for Africa, 1 billion of which was reserved for eradicating the root causes of migration through Niger. The adoption of the law was also related to the fact that Niger had no legal framework to prosecute smuggling, even though Niger had previously ratified the Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime.
Nonetheless, the implementation of the 2015/36 Law had been strongly criticized from the very beginning, especially in the Agadez region. Migration represented a critical economic activity in Agadez, involving large parts of the population in various roles such as transporting and hosting migrants and selling essential goods like food, water, and clothing. One of the effects reported is considered to be an upsurge in banditry linked to the loss of income-generating activities for many people who were previously legitimately involved in the migration sector.
