Supranational to the Grave? On the Geopolitics of Corpse Repatriation in the EU

ABSTRACT

The paper analyzes the institutions and regulations that govern the transnational movement of dead bodies in contemporary Europe. With the extension of free movement across the European Union and the subsequent expansion of transnational employment, tourism, and retirement, the repatriation of corpses from one member state to another lies in an ambiguous regulatory space. In exploring how dead bodies move between EU member states, and how their movements are regulated within transnational and national systems, the paper pays particular attention to the legacies and continued relevance of mid-century international agreements. Section 1 contextualises the issue of the transportation of mortal remains, discusses our broader theoretical background, and explains our research methods. Section 2 provides an historical overview of the foundational international regulations governing the repatriation of corpses: the 1937 Berlin Agreement and the 1973 Strasbourg Agreement. In Section 3, we present a comprehensive review of the discussion of repatriation of EU citizens between EU countries that occurred in the European Parliament and Commission between 2000 and 2018. In so doing, we focus on the ways in which understanding institutional action and inaction provides a lens on the operation of supranational competency development and its limits, and on the complex ways in which institutional arrangements are interwound within national, international, and transnational practices.

KEYWORDS:

• Corpse
• repatriation
• supranational
• corollary principle
• freedom of movement
• EU
• regulation

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Elizabeth Olson for her initial help with this project and anonymous referees for their helpful suggestions for sharpening the paper.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The literature on biopolitics and necropolitics is vast and complex. For our purposes here we elect not to use Mbembe’s (2003) valuable term ‘necropolitics’. Instead, our focus is on the quotidian, the everyday management of the corpse that has to be transported to a place called ‘home’. For a fascinating example of the use of necropolitics in geography and a brief but comprehensive overview of the history of the wider term necrogeography see Leshem (2015).

2. We are, of course, aware of the significant adjustments currently underway in what ‘free movement’ within Schengen and among EU member state territories means for the practicalities of ‘unimpeded’ movement.

3. Germany, Belgium, Chile, Denmark, France, Italy, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia, and Turkey signed the Arrangement on this date; Netherlands and Egypt signed on May 28^th and July 28^th 1937; and Chile, Egypt, Turkey, Mexico, and Romania ratified the treaty between 1937 and 1949 (Van Den Berg 1949).

4. The treaty stipulates laissez-passer for a corpse must be issued by “the competent authority” in the sending country. The Arrangement contains no further guidance on who this authority is or should be for any signatory country.

5. The 1973 Treaty was created by the Council of Europe.

6. “Chart of signatures and ratifications of Treaty 080 – Agreement on the Transfer of Corpses,” Council of Europe, accessed 13 March 2019, https://www.coe.int/en/web/conventions/full-list/-/conventions/treaty/080/signatures?p_auth=60OhEALs.

7. Countries with asterisks are members of the Council of Europe but not of the EU.

8. “Arrangement Concerning the Conveyance of Corpses,” League of Nations Treaty Series, 325.

9. Resolution on promoting the free movement of citizens and businesses by simplifying the acceptance of certain public documents in the European Union.