INTRODUCTION

The previous chapters examined the obligations of partner and sponsor States under international human rights law. In this chapter the analysis shift s to the issue of responsibility and the legal framework widens to include not only international human rights law but also the law on State responsibility. Thus, while the previous chapters focused on the first sub-question, Chapters VI and VII focus on the second subquestion: how does international law assign responsibility for violations of the socioeconomic rights of people on the move where multiple States are involved in migration control? More specifically, this chapter builds on the study's earlier findings in order to answer the following question: when do partner and sponsor States incur responsibility under international law for violations of the socio-economic rights of people on the move affected by cooperative migration control? It thereby lays the foundation for discussing issues of shared responsibility in Chapter VII.

In order to address issues of responsibility, this chapter and the next are premised on the existence of violations of the socio-economic rights of people on the move affected by cooperative migration control. In other words, the analysis applies only to situations where their rights – notably their core socio-economic rights – are not realised. Indeed, if there are no human rights violations there is no need to establish responsibility for them. Although cooperative migration control policies do not necessarily lead to violations of socio-economic rights, Chapter II demonstrated that they often entail a risk of such violations, since they aim to contain people on the move in the Global South. Therefore, the following analysis is relevant for most, if not all, cooperative migration control policies.

Section 2 examines, at a general level, under which circumstances a State incurs responsibility under international law and explores the relation between the concepts of responsibility, attribution and jurisdiction. Section 3 then discusses to what extent partner State can incur responsibility for the non-realisation of the socio-economic rights of people on the move affected by cooperative migration control. Section 4, in turn, examines under what circumstances sponsor States can incur responsibility in the same context.