LOOKING BACK: KEY FINDINGS

This study focused on violations of the socio-economic rights of people on the move who are affected by policies whereby sponsor States in the Global North cooperate with partner States in the Global South to stem migration flows. In answering the research questions, it examined multiple issues and came to various conclusions. This section first recalls the key findings of this study, before answering the main research question and examining what considerations one must take into account when applying the assessment framework developed in this study to specific situations.

SUMMARY OF THE MAIN CONCLUSIONS

The study started by examining the plight of people on the move in partner States in the Mediterranean, the Asia Pacific and the Americas. Chapter II demonstrated that many risk suff ering violations of their socio-economic rights, such as an inadequate standard of living, lack of access to education and health care, and labour exploitation. Furthermore, States often implement multiple measures in parallel and their centre of gravity shifts from the Global North to the Global South as sponsor States seek to avoid triggering their obligations towards people on the move by increasingly cooperating with partner States. Contemporary forms of cooperation include people transfers; the provision of funding, training and equipment; information sharing; and diplomatic relations and development aid conditionality. Crucially, the relation between violations of the socio-economic rights of people on the move in partner States and cooperative migration control depends on the causal link between the two and the question whether States are unable or unwilling to realise the socio-economic rights of people on the move affected by these policies. The coexistence of multiple measures that results in the containment of people on the move in the Global SouThis relevant in this regard insofar as it can prevent people on the move from leaving the Global South altogether.

While Chapter II provided the empirical backdrop for the legal analysis, Chapters III to V addressed the first research question: what is the scope of States’ international obligations as regards the socio-economic rights of people on the move in the context of cooperative migration control?