A/HRC/47/30 III. Study on means to address the human rights impact of pushbacks of migrants on land and at sea A. Introduction 32. Pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution 43/6, the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants is mandated “to examine ways and means to overcome the obstacles existing to the full and effective protection of the human rights of migrants, recognizing the particular vulnerability of women, children and those undocumented or in an irregular situation”.1 In carrying out his mandate, the Special Rapporteur has decided to dedicate his report to the Human Rights Council at its forty-seventh session to addressing the human rights impact of pushbacks of migrants on land and at sea.2 The Special Rapporteur is grateful for the observations and information submitted by a wide array of stakeholders.3 33. Pushback practices demonstrate a denial of States’ international obligations to protect the human rights of migrants at international borders. In the present report, the Special Rapporteur gives a working definition of pushbacks, based on an examination of current pushback practices and trends, including in the context of the coronavirus disease (COVID19) pandemic, and provides an analysis of their impact on the human rights of migrants. In the report, he also presents views of States on challenges and obstacles that they face in ensuring access for migrants to due process and safeguards, including protection, at international borders.4 The Special Rapporteur also identifies and shares promising practices and initiatives that exemplify human rights-based border governance, and provides recommendations to States on how to better protect the human rights of migrants at international borders. B. Pushbacks: context and a working definition 34. In the absence of an internationally agreed definition of “pushbacks” in the context of migration and for the purposes of the present report, the Special Rapporteur describes “pushbacks” as various measures taken by States, sometimes involving third countries or non-State actors, which result in migrants, including asylum seekers, being summarily forced back, without an individual assessment of their human rights protection needs, to the country or territory, or to sea, whether it be territorial waters or international waters, from where they attempted to cross or crossed an international border. 35. The present report uses “pushbacks” as an overarching term for all such measures, actions or policies effectively resulting in the removal of migrants, individually or in groups, without an individualized assessment in line with human rights obligations and due process guarantees. 36. As described above, pushbacks generally involve practices relating to the removal of non-nationals from the territory of a State, such as “arbitrary expulsion” or “collective expulsion”, which are established legal notions under international law. A demonstration of the arbitrariness of such practices is that pushbacks may also entail the summary removal of a non-national from a country to a third country other than a previous country of transit or 1 2 3 4 4 See para. 1. A team from the University of Bristol cooperated in the preparation of the present report. Submissions are available at www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Migration/SRMigrants/Pages/Pushbackpractices.aspx. In the present report, the term “international borders” is used in line with the use in A/69/277, footnote 34. Thus, “international borders” is understood broadly as the politically defined boundaries separating territory or maritime zones between political entities and the areas where political entities exercise border governance measures in their territory or extraterritorially (such areas including land checkpoints, border posts at train stations, ports and airports, immigration and transit zones, the high seas and so-called “no-man’s-land” between border posts, in addition to embassies and consulates).