Introduction

On 20 August 2026, Amnesty International published the report “Italy: Extraterritorial Migration Detention and Human Rights Obligations – The Agreement with Albania”, providing a comprehensive analysis of the human rights consequences arising from the 2023 Agreement between Italy and Albania. The report examines the implementation of the Agreement and its implications for the rights of people transferred to Albania, focusing in particular on the legality of their transfer and detention, access to asylum and judicial safeguards, and the conditions of detention. It further considers the broader implications of the Agreement for transparency, independent monitoring, institutional accountability, and the rule of law. 

Key aspects of the Italy-Albania Agreement

Signed in November 2023 and entered into force in January 2024, the bilateral agreement provided for the construction of an identification centre and a detention centre respectively in the Albanian towns of Shenjin and Gjader, over which Italy would retain jurisdiction. Under the Agreement, Italy planned to use these facilities for the fast-tracked processing of asylum claims for people presumed to come from “safe countries of origin”, though this only applied to individuals taken onboard Italian vessels in international waters. Soon after its announcement, Amnesty expressed serious concern at the human rights risks posed by the Agreement, including for the safety, physical integrity, and liberty of affected people.

Between October 2024 and January 2025, Italy carried out three maritime interceptions/rescues and forcibly transferred 74 people from international waters to Albania. However, following several Italian court rulings invalidating the detention orders for people held in Albania, Italy put a halt to forcible transfers from the high seas.

In March 2025, the Italian government amended the Ratification law of the Agreement to enable the Gjader centre to be used to detain male foreign nationals subject to expulsion orders in Italy, resulting in the forcible transfer of over 500 men from repatriation detention centres (CPRs) in Italy to Gjader. As Amnesty noted, this measure predominantly affected racialised men including from North Africa, Bangladesh, Ivory Coast, and Gambia. 

Violations of the rights of people forcibly transported to Albania from the high seas

The Italian government’s plan was to forcibly transfer individuals presumed to come from “safe countries of origin” in order to accelerate the examination of their asylum claims, on the assumption that most of them would be rejected. By processing and likely rejecting asylum applications without ever setting foot on Italian territory, the original purpose was to dissuade people from trying to enter Italy, especially because smugglers would now not be able to guarantee access to the country.

The first phase of the implementation of the Agreement led to three maritime operations: the first in October 2024, concerning 16 male foreigners; the second in November 2024, concerning 9 people; the third in January 2025, concerning 49 male foreigners. In this briefing, Amnesty International raises concerns about the human rights of people transported to Albania with respect to all three operations, investigating the impact of the Agreement.

Firstly, international law requires Italy to rescue persons in distress at sea without delay and ensure their prompt disembarkation in a “place of safety”. However, the distance of the port of Shenjin from the main rescue areas, combined with the additional transfer to the hub-ship for pre-screening, prolonged the journeys by several days and subjected the people concerned to additional suffering.

Additionally, neither the Agreement nor the Ratification law detail the procedures according to which people would be intercepted and taken to Albania. It was only following a lawyer’s request that the Italian government disclosed that it had adopted Standard Operating Procedures to regulate this process, raising further concerns over the authorities’ lack of transparency.

The mechanism foreseen by the Agreement requires that people intercepted or rescued at sea are assessed for vulnerabilities. This takes place in two phases: the “pre-screening”, which occurs on the hub-ship on the high seas; the “screening”, which occurs at the centre in Shengjin. Before the pre-screening, a preliminary assessment takes place on the first vessel in order to determine who is ineligible for transfer to Albania “in absolute terms” (including women, children, people with manifest disabilities). They are then taken to Lampedusa, while the remaining people are transferred to the hub-ship. There, a legal information session takes place, as well as the pre-screening. Those who are deemed eligible on its basis are disembarked at Shengjin, where a more thorough medical screening takes place. At that point, if people with vulnerabilities were missed, they are boarded back on the hub-ship and transferred to Italy. The others are taken to the detention centre of Gjader.

In all three operations, the pre-screening and the screening led to a significant number of people being sent to Italy, raising questions about the appropriateness of vulnerability screenings carried out in international waters. As Amnesty has indicated, the people taken onboard of the hub-ships throughout the three operations were in a condition of de facto detention, which lasted up to four days, further aggravating the situation 

However, Italian courts did not validate the detention orders of the people forcibly taken to Albania, on the basis of the breach of the then applicable EU Directive 2013/32. As a result, Italy quickly reacted by issuing an immediately enforceable measure listing the countries of origin to be regarded as safe (Decree-Law 158/2024).  By replacing a secondary domestic measure with primary law capable of prevailing on EU regulations, the report argues that the Italian government’s decision was intended to interfere with the court’s rulings and undermine the primacy of EU law.

Ultimately, while the right to asylum is protected under Article 10.3 of the Italian Constitution and international human rights law, the Agreement makes it more difficult for affected people to seek protection and access judicial guarantees. Amnesty International particularly opposes the concept of “safe countries of origin” because it undermines the protection claims of nationals from these countries, putting the burden on these people to prove that they need protection.

In August 2025, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled that member states cannot designate countries as “safe” if they do not offer sufficient protection to the entirety of their population, contrasting with Italian rules. However, the legal framework has subsequently changed with the entry into force of the new EU Pact on Migration and Asylum in June 2026. These new rules allow for the designation of “safe countries of origin” with “exceptions for specific parts of its territory or clearly identifiable categories of persons”.

Violations of the rights of people forcibly transferred to Albania from repatriation centres

Following the Italian courts’ rulings which did not validate the orders of detention in Albania, the Italian government expanded the purpose of the Agreement. In March 2025, the Ratification law was amended so as to use the Gjader centre to also detain male foreign nationals with expulsion orders in Italy. With regard to this second phase of the Agreement, Amnesty International is concerned about the unlawfulness and arbitrariness of extraterritorial transfers, as well as the rights of detainees and their treatment.

Insofar as the lawfulness of extraterritorial transfers is concerned, the briefing analyses ongoing cases referred to the CJEU by the Italian Court of Cassation in order to verify the compatibility of such transfers with EU law. In this sense, the Italian court raised a relevant issue: whether applicable EU law on returns allows for the forcible transfer of individuals subject to a detention order in Italy to a non-EU country to which they have not voluntarily agreed to go. Moreover, Amnesty International contested the Italian authorities’ decision to forcibly transfer over 500 individuals from CPRs in Italy to Gjader without providing any written motivation behind the measure. While this has been justified through the amendments to the Ratification law, the NGO notes that the Italian Constitution establishes that actions resulting in a restriction of personal liberty are not admissible unless decided and motivated by a judicial authority. Moreover, the Immigration Act provides that detainees in preparation for their expulsion must be sent to the closest repatriation detention facility, which is not a legal requirement that is met in the case of transfers to Gjader.

The briefing also raises concerns about the risk of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, as people detained in Gjader consistently reported the use of physical restrictions, such as Velcro hand ties, during transfers, even in the absence of any form of resistance – ultimately resulting in a violation of domestic and international laws and standards.

As far as the rights of detainees in Gjader are concerned, Amnesty International warns that the conditions created by the Agreement, including the geographical distance, the location of the centres in a third country, and the different languages spoken by some of the staff members, pose additional challenges for the protection of the rights of detainees and their ability to access justice. This, together with inappropriate detention spaces, risks compromising the rights of detainees altogether. In accordance with this, in July 2025, the Italian Constitutional Court highlighted in a ruling that the Italian parliament had so far failed to align the methods of detention in CPRs with constitutional requirements.

Furthermore, the right to health emerges as a relevant concern. While the Gjader facility is equipped with a medical clinic and professional staff, there have still been several incidents connected to the health of detainees, especially with respect to self-harm. In fact, as a result of the transfers following the amendments to the Ratification law, data show that 42 critical incidents took place in Gjader between 11 April and 16 May 2025, including two attempted hangings, a protest leading to a shattered glass that injured three people, and various incidents of self-harm.

Ultimately, the report raises questions about potential violations of the principle of non-refoulement, especially because of the lack of a legal framework concerning repatriation procedures starting from the centre of Gjader. Amnesty argues that this might create a grey area where people’s treatment during transfers cannot be monitored.

Restrictions to independent monitoring and the rule of law

The risk of human rights violations in Gjader is further aggravated by the difficulty to ensure independent monitoring of detention conditions in an extraterritorial facility. Amnesty International criticises the overall lack of transparency and accountability issues arising from the Agreement, as illustrated, among other things, by the government’s decision not to allocate additional resources for monitoring an extraterritorial detention structure (see Ratification law).

The report highlights the obstacles encountered by lawyers, judicial authorities, monitoring bodies, and civil society organisations in exercising their role for the protection of affected individuals. NGOs and members of both the Italian and European Union parliaments have denounced restrictions imposed by the Albanian authorities, particularly regarding access to the centres and the possibility of carrying out unannounced visits. Amnesty International, for instance, was repeatedly refused permission to enter the facilities on the basis of vague and unsubstantiated security grounds. These restrictions have consequently limited the ability of journalists, legal representatives, parliamentarians, and NGOs to obtain information, leaving them largely dependent on information provided by the Italian government as their main source of information, which has itself not always been readily accessible.

Furthermore, concerns have been raised regarding the Italian government’s approach to independent monitoring of the Agreement’s implementation. In particular, the marginalisation of parliamentary oversight, the circumvention of ordinary legislative procedures, and the constraints placed on judicial review of the designation of “safe countries of origin” have been identified as significant obstacles to effective institutional accountability. These practices may undermine legal safeguards granted to migrants and refugees, as well as broader principles of the rule of law.

Conclusion

Taken together, Amnesty International’s findings raise serious concerns about the compatibility of the Italy-Albania Agreement with human rights obligations. From the failure to uphold the rights of people in distress at sea to the substantial and procedural challenges posed to oversight mechanisms and judicial safeguards, the report sheds light on the evidence of human rights violations committed by Italian authorities accumulated in the two and half years of implementation of the Agreement. Because of this, Amnesty International calls on Italian authorities to end the Agreement with Albania, immediately end transfers of detainees with expulsion orders to Gjader, and ensure access to human-rights-compliant asylum procedures. Furthermore, it calls on EU member states and institutions to refrain from reproducing similar harmful attempts to deny access to territorial asylum and process asylum for international protection extraterritorially.

Overall, Amnesty’s report fits into the broader discourse on the matter carried forward by other international bodies and NGOs. In its concluding observations on Albania’s third periodic report from 2025, the UN Human Rights Committee warned that key aspects of the Agreement may contravene core obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights – particularly with regard to automatic detention, prolonged confinement, and limited access to individualised asylum procedures (see Yearbook 2025). Moreover, right after the announcement of the Agreement, a group of UN Special Rapporteurs and the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention issued a joint communication (AL ITA 3/2024), raising concern about this extraterritorial arrangement. Among others, the experts questioned the lack of clarity of the procedures, issues related to search and rescue obligations under maritime law, and the failure to protect vulnerable individuals (see Yearbook 2024).