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Thousands of migrants are currently dying every year in Europe in deeply troubling circumstances. Most die whilst attempting to cross the Mediterranean, but there are also many deaths in refugee camps, immigration detention centres or during attempts to cross Europe's internal borders. State and EU policy on migration and border control is notoriously vulnerable to political manoeuvring, as political parties compete for a fickle domestic electorship. This project will explore both the existing scope, and the theoretical normative potential, of international obligations to investigate certain deaths as a means of ensuring that the protection of migrants' lives is less dependent on political will, and more tied to existing human rights and humanitarian obligations. The project will ask the following questions: In what circumstances will the death of an unsettled migrant engage a state's obligation to investigate and explore potential accountability for the death? To what extent are existing investigative obligations sufficient for ensuring a minimum of practical protection for the range of human rights owed to migrants and refugees? And, taking into account international legal precedents and the theoretical controversies that accompany them, what is the normative scope of investigative obligations as a means of better safeguarding these rights?
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