OUVRAGE : J. De Coninck, The EU’s Human Rights Responsibility Gap: Deconstructing Human Rights Impunity of International Organisations

Joyce DE CONINCK

Can the EU be held legally responsible for its contributions to human rights harms in its Integrated Border Management policy? Or do systemic legal design flaws in the EU's human rights responsibility regime give rise to a significant responsibility gap?

This book delves into these pressing questions, offering a transversal analysis of applicable legal frameworks under international and EU law. Divided into three parts, the book first analyses the international and EU human rights responsibility frameworks, revealing both 'normative incongruency' as well as 'liability incongruency'. Part two applies these frameworks to specific illustrations within the four tiers of the EU's Integrated Border Management, exposing the critical points where responsibility falters. Building on these findings and drawing from shared responsibility and relationality theories, part three briefly introduces 'Relational Human Rights Responsibility' as an alternative method to ascertaining human rights responsibility of the EU specifically, and international organisations more generally.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword
Table of Contents
List of Abbreviations 

PART I
INTRODUCTION 

I. IOs, the EU and Human Rights Responsibility

1. Embedding the EU Human Rights Responsibility Question in Larger Human Rights Debates
2. A Functional Appraisal of the EU's Human Rights Responsibility Regime
3. A transversal and Applied Appraisal of the EU's Human Rights Responsibility Regime
4. Urgency of the Inquiry: Transnational Cooperative Governance and Technology
5. Sequential Questioning and Structuring

II. EU Integrated Border Management and the Right to an Effective Remedy

1. Competence Division and Integrated Border Management
2. The Transformations of Integrated Border Management
3. Tracing the Human Rights Consequences of IBM Transformations

PART II
THE EU’S HUMAN RIGHTS
RESPONSIBILITY REGIME 

III. Normative Incongruence: Human Rights Obligations of International Organisations and the EU

1. The Sources of EU Human Rights Law
2. The EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights
3. Interim Conclusions

IV. Liability Incongruence: Establishing Responsibility of IOs and the EU

1. Traditional Conditions for Responsibility
2. Conditions for Shared Responsibility

PART III
EU HUMAN RIGHTS
RESPONSIBILITY IN PRACTICE 

V. Adjudicatory Jurisdiction and the Non-Refoulement Principle

1. Jurisdiction
2. The Prohibition of Refoulement

VI. Measures in Third Countries

1. Legal Framework and Context
2. Tracing Human Rights Implications
3. Responsibility in Practice

VII. Operational Cooperation with Third Countries

1. Mandate, Objectives, Legal Framework and Command Structures
2. Tracing Human Rights Implications
3. Responsibility in Practice

VIII. Measures at the EU External Border

1. Legal Framework and Context
2. Tracing Human Rights Implications
3. Responsibility in Practice

IX. Return and Readmission Agreements with Third Countries

1. Legal Framework and Competences
2. Tracing Human Rights Implications
3. Responsibility in Practice

PART IV
RELATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS
RESPONSIBILITY 

X. Incongruence Clusters and EU Responsibility

1. Normative Incongruence
2. Liability Incongruence

XI. EU Relational Human Rights Responsibility?

1. Integrated Border Management or The EU's Human Rights Responsibility Regime?
2. A Relational Regime of Responsibility

 

Joyce De CONINCK, The EU’s Human Rights Responsibility Gap. Deconstructing Human Rights Impunity of International Organisations, London, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024 (336 pp.)