State Complicity in Aiding and Assisting Extraterritorial Human Rights Violations

Abstract Informal externalisation, wherein destination states provide aid and assistance to third states in exchange for their cooperation in the extraterritorial management of asylum and irregular migration, presents a significant challenge to the authority of international law. This article explores the potential complicity of destination states aiding and assisting pushbacks and pullbacks of asylum seekers resulting in extraterritorial human rights violations. It comparatively analyses the Italy-Libya and Hungary-Serbia informal externalisation collaborations – two distinct cases with varying levels of aid or assistance from the externalising states – to understand the extent to which an externalising state can be held responsible for aiding and assisting human rights violations resulting from their assistance to the respective transit state. The article concludes by arguing that a state can be held accountable for extraterritorial human rights violations if it makes it materially easier for the assisted state to commit human rights violations through its positive contribution, has knowledge or near-certain knowledge that the aid or assistance provided will be used, at least in part, in their commission, and intends for its aid or assistance to contribute to these violations. The article further argues that both Hungary and Italy provide some form of material assistance to transit states in efforts to pullback asylum seekers, which could be a valid ground for holding Hungary and Italy complicit in extraterritorial human rights violations. Thus, assessing responsibility for aiding and assisting in such contexts could potentially provide an avenue for bringing complex forms of informal externalisation under the accountability of international law.