A/HRC/47/30 the country of origin.5 Pushbacks deny migrants their fundamental rights by depriving them of access to protection defined in international and national law, as well as procedural safeguards. The definition provided in the present report encompasses measures taken summarily to deny migrants access to a State’s territory or jurisdiction, to prevent disembarkation, to curb onward travel or to expel migrants to outside of its territory. As such, this definition includes practices that can take place before an individual has entered a State’s territory, as well as within the State’s territory. 37. Pushback practices are variously carried out by State actors (regular and border police, specialized units, and military and security agents), as well as in cooperation with non-State actors (unidentified paramilitaries, carriers, transport personnel and contractors, operators of commercial vessels, private security personnel and others) acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the State. Some States conduct pushback operations with the acquiescence, and sometimes the cooperation, of third States to which migrants are forcibly removed;6 elsewhere, pushbacks are carried out secretively, giving rise to disputes regarding responsibility, as well as to political conflict. 38. States are responsible for border governance on their territory, and for any operations elsewhere where they exercise effective control or authority over an area, place, individual(s) or transaction.7 The transnational nature of some State actions in the context of governing international borders does not exempt States from fulfilling positive human rights obligations, nor from accountability; rather, the responsibility of multiple States may be implicated in certain cases, for instance on the high seas, and elsewhere when States act extraterritorially. 8 C. International legal framework 39. States have an obligation to respect, protect and fulfil the human rights of everyone on their territory or within their jurisdiction or effective control, irrespective of migration status and without discrimination of any kind. States’ obligations under all the core international human rights treaties relating to their migration governance measures require that human rights be at the centre of their efforts to address migration in all its phases, including in their responses to large and mixed movements.9 States must ensure that border governance measures respect, inter alia, the prohibition of collective expulsions, the principle of equality and non-discrimination, the principle of non-refoulement, the right to seek asylum, the right to life, the prohibition of torture, the promotion of gender equality, and the rights and best interests of the child. States are further bound to ensure access to justice for victims of human rights violations, and abide by their search and rescue obligations under international maritime law. 5 6 7 8 9 The submissions by the Danish Refugee Council and the Hungarian Helsinki Committee document instances of pushback where migrants were forcibly removed, from Croatia and Hungary to Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia respectively, despite not having previously transited through those countries. Such cooperation may involve – among other actions – assisting, funding or training agencies in other countries to arrest, detain, process, rescue or disembark and return migrants. See A/72/335, paras. 36– 40. A/70/303, paras. 11–13. The extraterritorial applicability of human rights obligations is firmly established; the decisive criterion for jurisdiction (and hence responsibility) is not whether a person is within the territory of the State, but whether or not the State exercises effective control over the person. See Human Rights Committee, general comment No. 31 (2004), para. 10. See principle 1 in the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and Global Migration Group publication entitled Principles and Guidelines, supported by practical guidance, on the human rights protection of migrants in vulnerable situations, pp. 21–22. 5