The research for this study covers a period of almost four years, from the fall of 2016 to the summer of 2020. During this time, cooperative migration control policies themselves have continued to evolve, as illustrated by the signing of the Italy-Libya Memorandum of Understanding in 2017, Australia's announcement to cut IOM funding for Indonesia in 2018, and the conclusion of the 2019 US-Guatemala cooperative agreement. As these developments confirm that sponsor States increasingly seek to cooperate with partner States to stem migration flows from the Global South to the Global North, they fit easily within the parameters of this study. Since such developments often have a negative eff ect on the plight of people on the move in partner States, they confirm that cooperative migration control often leads to violations of the socio-economic rights of people on the move. At the same time, the international legal framework which this study analyses remained largely unchanged: no new major human rights treaties entered into force and no output of courts or human rights bodies was so ground-breaking as to fundamentally change the legal analysis. Moreover, important developments, notably the adoption of the Global Compacts for Migration and on Refugees, largely align with the existing legal framework. In other words, this study could accommodate empirical and legal developments without significantly affecting its main findings.

The question arises, however, to what extent the foregoing applies to the COVID-19 pandemic that unfolded during 2020. Its impact was felt everywhere, from people on the move through policy makers and academics to judges of regional human rights courts. At an empirical level, it is evident that the pandemic has affected the plight of people on the move themselves. In addition to the obvious issues that arise regarding their right to health, their other socio-economic rights have often likewise been affected, be it through school closures or loss of employment. The pandemic has also had a direct impact on many migration control measures themselves, ranging from Southern European States refusing to disembark people on the move rescued in the Mediterranean because their ports are not ‘safe’ to deportations of people on the move, including asylum seekers.