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Abstract

Border controls have been described as the last bastion of sovereignty. Borders delineate the boundaries of a given community, and in so doing they implicitly define its identity. The emerging European integrated border management (EIBM) challenges this linear assumption. The European space of free movement is the paradigm of a space where the differences between the internal and the external are oftentimes interwoven. In addition, technological advancements are contributing to changing the traditional practice of border controls, with many different actors involved in a complex dynamic of securization. The hallmark of the EIBM is its technocratic and depoliticised logic of border integration. Several state and non-state actors cooperate in this process at various levels. The post-national shift of border control practices at the European level is best exemplified in the development of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex), which coordinates and supervises the action of the various actors involved in the EIBM. This evolution not only puts to test the relation between territory and public power, but it also requires a different understanding of the responsibility ensuing from the exercise of that power by a panoply of different actors. This thesis addresses the challenges related to the cooperation between various actors operating within the EIBM and the human rights responsibilities that this cooperation can trigger. In so doing, it links two separate but interlaced discourses: the first being a reflection on the concept of EIBM as implemented by Frontex and the Schengen member states and its impact on migrant rights; and the second being the question of the attribution of international responsibility for migrant rights violations occurred in the context of Frontex activities. The underlying theoretical question concerns the ways in which international responsibility can be conceived in a context in which borders are increasingly managed and secured by supranational institutions and legitimised in a post-national fashion.

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