Elena LAZĂR*

Faculty of Law, University of Bucharest

Abstract: Migration by sea represents a topic that brings to attention  controversial issues, mostly due to the difficulty of achieving the right  balance between the two interests at stake- assuring the security and  integrity of borders and respecting the rights of irregular migrants that  travel by sea. Another challenge and quite a delicate issue is related to the  fight against terrorism in the context of recent migration crisis from the past  few years. This paper aims to provide on one hand the framework picture of  the international legal instruments that deal with this topic in order to  emphasize their potential flaws and on the other hand to briefly analyze the  bilateral agreements concluded by States in order to better deal with the  migratory flow.

Key-words: irregular migrant, terrorism, search and rescue, safety place.

*Elena has graduated the University of Bucharest, Faculty of Law (2010), the LLM in  Private Law (2011) and the LLM in European Union Business Law (2011) at the same  faculty. She has also obtained her PhD in 2015 in the field of human rights law at the  Faculty of Law. In her capacity of teaching assistant at the Law Faculty, she is in charge  with seminars on Public International Law and International Organizations and Relations  for the second year of undergraduate studies. She also works as a lawyer and as a legal  expert on criminal law matters for the EU Commission.The opinions expressed in this  paper are solely the author’s and do not engage the institutions he belongs to.