The array of countries examined in this book offers a range of cross-cutting themes and propositions. Indeed, a careful sifting of the chapters suggest important similarities and differences not only in terms of how the twelve states under examination have handled common problems and challenges in their efforts to interact with their national communities abroad but also in the underlying rationale(s) for engaging (or not) in said activities in the first place. This concluding chapter first discusses general insights concerning the motivations of states’ interactions with their national communities abroad and the reasons that explain those interactions. Next, it zooms in on specific themes and trends in some greater detail, including: the contested, and at times highly politicized, nature of defining national communities abroad; the mismatch between states’ material capabilities and their willingness to engage their communities abroad; and acts of “democratic repression” which suggest that the discussion on transnational authoritarianism needs to be complemented by a systematic examination of democratic countries’ repressive actions abroad.

In the Epilogue, I take a step back to offer a few generalizations about the history of state responsibility. First, I reconceptualize the growth of state responsibility in terms of three overlapping phases: (1) pre-legalism; (2) ad hoc legalism; and (3) institutional legalism. I then consider some themes common to US, German and other approaches to state responsibility. One idea that runs through all three narratives is the consequentiality of breaking the law. When a state violates its international obligations, there should be a consequence for its conduct. What that “responsibility” should mean was, of course, an open question. Another noticeable pattern is that state responsibility was a fundamentally exceptional doctrine. Whatever the purported general rule, the doctrine has consistently provided considerable room for exceptions. Yet, while the UN–codified doctrine does not predict state behavior, it remains a critical legal framework. The codification of state responsibility as secondary rules has provided international society with an argumentative tradition for questioning and judging any type of state conduct.

The Philippine state considers its citizens living and working abroad as valuable assets, given their contribution to the economic growth and development of the home country. Philippine state interactions with its nationals overseas are largely characterized by engagement, support, and protection. This chapter examines how the Philippine government has implemented its diaspora policy over time. The chapter also underscores the protection of Filipino nationals as a principal task of the state which is conducted mainly through diplomacy, albeit at times supported by the military through rescue operations during crises. Legal frameworks and institutions have been established to cater to the needs of Filipino migrants abroad, especially those of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs). The government has also actively entered into bilateral labor agreements and international conventions to promote their rights and welfare. While government agencies are organized to cater to this sector of society, there are limitations on state capacity such as bureaucratic inefficiencies and financial constraints. A comprehensive and inclusive multisectoral approach needs to be adopted, allowing other stakeholders aside from the government to take part in addressing key issues that concern the safety and welfare of Filipinos overseas.

It is no coincidence that the modern doctrine of state responsibility bares close resemblance to German public law. In addition to the US–led practice of international arbitration, another early source of state responsibility was the German theorization of international law. German lawyers were grappling with the growing political power of the state and sought to relate these political realities to legal norms. These lawyers were not concerned with alien protection in particular, but with state power in general. They looked at state responsibility through a wide lens – that is, as it relates to the violation of any international obligation. The trajectory of state responsibility within German theory shows a pattern: as the German approach to statehood became abstracted from monarchical conceptions, the idea of responsibility became increasingly possible and robust. These streams of thought shared an assumption about philosophy’s vital role (and arbitration’s minor part) in constructing and legitimating state responsibility.

Egypt is the most populous state in the Arab world, with just over 100 million citizens residing in the country, and Egyptian nationals have long looked abroad for opportunities. This chapter examines the evolution of the country’s policies toward its diaspora and seeks to understand how the Egyptian government has attempted to protect, assist, and cultivate loyalty among its citizens abroad, as well as how it has sought to exert further control over this population. Beginning with targeted secondment policies that aimed to spread pan-Arabist ideology in the 1950s and 1960s, and broadening to mass labor exportation agreements directed primarily toward other Arab nations in the 1970s, Egypt sought to address demographic concerns of overpopulation and an overburdened and underfinanced public sector, and to reap the benefit of remittances as a major contribution to the country’s GDP. But the chapter also addresses Egypt’s failure to establish effective governance of, and engagement with, its diaspora. This includes the overlapping responsibilities of the numerous ministries in charge of emigration, an unwillingness to resolve domestic economic issues in order to prevent further brain drain and to incentivize the return of Egyptians abroad, and the state’s continued use of transnational repression toward its citizenry.

India has historically been the leading country of origin of international migrants, with an estimated 32 million overseas Indians in 2018, including 19 million Persons of Indian Origin (PIO) and 13 million Non-Resident Indians (NRIs). This chapter looks at how India initially adopted a policy of limited engagement with Indians abroad due to limited material capacities to support a large and diverse overseas community. In reaction to the emergence of an increasingly rich and influential Indian diaspora in the OECD countries, and as India’s own material capacities grew, the chapter then describes how the Government of India sought since the early 1990s to actively co-opt its community abroad by providing more consular services and by redesigning its diaspora policies and institutions. The chapter shows that the expansion of India’s consular support services has also been driven by the need to ensure stable remittances from low-skilled migrants. Also noted is how the Indian government has developed repressive tools against Indians abroad whom it considers to be a threat to its national sovereignty and integrity. This chapter concludes that, despite the design of new policies to engage nationals abroad, limited material resources devoted to these initiatives have in turn limited their implementation and success.

The United States provides limited direct support to its citizens abroad, but provides significant indirect support, via a global order in which capitalism, and US businesses in particular, can thrive. Historically, driven by laissez-faire ideological commitments and a limited welfare state at home, the US has rarely and only reluctantly organized or offered significant assistance when its citizens abroad have been in distress. However, mobilization by hostage families and advocacy organizations has forced the US to take a more active role in recent years, especially in prominent cases. With a vast security, diplomatic, and intelligence apparatus at its disposal to conduct matters of state, the US does not rely on citizens abroad to conduct foreign policy. It has sometimes engaged in repression of dissenting citizens through travel controls, and it has subjected citizens and others to significant surveillance. Although US citizens in distress abroad often receive limited direct assistance, US businesses can, in contrast, avail themselves of robust federal and state government aid for their commercial activities overseas – in line with US interests and ideology.

According to Türkiye’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, there are approximately 6.5 million Turkish people living abroad. With national communities in more than seventy nations, the Turkish diaspora has a global reach. This chapter examines Türkiye’s relations with its national communities abroad. Over the decades, Türkiye reimagined its relationship with its citizens abroad, which in turn allowed national communities abroad to reimagine their home state. In the early years of labor migration, Türkiye focused on economic benefits such as remittances. Later on, Ankara noticed the public policy potential of national communities living abroad. With widening diplomatic support and an increase in selective cultural engagement, Türkiye expanded its reach to overseas communities. While diplomatic services benefited all, some forms of cultural support targeted conservative populations. Domestic security concerns also led to an interest in understanding the political leanings of the diaspora.

State responsibility is that oddest of international legal institutions, theoretically omnipresent but rarely visible as practical implementation. There is a sense in which the institution appears simply tautologous with the totality of international law itself. Isn’t every legal subject “responsible” for carrying out their obligations? Isn’t it part of the very definition of a legal rule – in contrast to other rules – that it is accompanied by the “responsibility” of the one who breaches them? The word plays tricks on its users: it designates both the rule (“you have a responsibility to do this”) and the consequences of the rule (“breach of obligation entails responsibility”). In such ways, responsibility penetrates all legal thinking and practice, underlining the seriousness of the legal system and the duty of the subjects of that system to comply. And yet it is seldom applied as such. States may readily agree to ex gratia payments to settle disputes with their neighbours – but responsibility is seldom recognized, perhaps to avoid the tone of moral condemnation it may engage.

Overseas Pakistanis continue to grow in number, expanding the national community abroad. The three main challenges that exist for the Pakistani government in protecting its citizens abroad are interconnected and have to do with maintaining remittances, increasing educational opportunities, and potentially loosening visa restrictions that hamper the ability of Pakistanis to travel and interact with other countries economically. While the world has focused on security, mainly evaluating Pakistan from an Afghanistan-focused lens as US and NATO forces remained in the country till August 2021, Pakistanis have been busy seizing opportunities for themselves and their families, indicating a high level of agency. The Pakistani government is motivated by its diaspora’s agency and self-identity needs, and welcomes engagement. This movement has now resulted in remittances becoming Pakistan’s largest source of national foreign exchange. In order to maintain remittances, the Pakistani government’s activities are likely to intensify over time. As the Pakistani government engages with its citizens abroad, one of the most interesting revelations about this research is the lack of direct military involvement.

Through diplomatic protection, aliens could invest abroad with the expectation that if they were injured in an unstable country, international law would provide an additional framework of protection. The US practice ensured that the content and scope of international obligations would extend beyond ad hoc diplomacy to international arbitration, where professional lawyers began to articulate general principles of state responsibility. The most important of these principles was the minimum standard of care owed to aliens. If a state failed to meet international standards, its legal responsibility was engaged. Latin American lawyers, however, were unhappy with state responsibility being applied in this way. In response to what they viewed as legal imperialism, Latin Americans expanded the doctrine to apply to the US and Latin Americans alike and to the violation of any international obligation and not just alien protection. In this way, what began as a narrow practice in Latin America, grew into a general framework of international law enforcement.

The establishment of the League of Nations created institutional opportunities to codify state responsibility. Legal experts had two sources upon which to draw for codification purposes: the US practice of alien protection and German theories of international responsibility. Anglo-Americans expected to crystallize their arbitral gains through codification. Latin Americans sought to proceed with codification more systematically, based on German theory. Experts within world bodies were irreconcilably split over the relevance of international arbitration for decades. By the 1960s, the US approach became a minority view within world bodies. Latin American representatives had accumulated sufficient voting power to reject any attempt to entrench the US practice. This history ends in 1962, with the replacement of Special Rapporteur García-Amador with Roberto Ago. Under Ago’s leadership, the UN uncoupled its efforts from the intra–American arbitrations and codified state responsibility based on German theory instead.

In the first chapter, I introduce the concept of state responsibility, the set of norms that regulate how states are permitted to enforce their rights under international law. I describe it as an exceptional doctrine that is easy to oversimplify. I present my thesis on the recent origins of state responsibility, which was “born” sometime between 1870 and 1930. I discuss the problems with state responsibility that are unique to international law and how lawyers have coped with this differently depending on their standpoints. Accordingly, I structure the book to reflect three such perspectives: (1) American practitioners; (2) German philosophers; and (3) institutional publicists. Despite the UN’s successful codification of state responsibility in 2001, the book demonstrates the continuing importance of uncodified doctrines of state responsibility. Taken together, this expanded history highlights the complexity of state responsibility as well as the political contexts from which it emerged.