Responsibility for Violations of Human Rights Via Capacity to Effect Rights 114. In addition, European States are at very real risk of liability for the human rights abuses suffered by their nationals in detention in North East Syria. While States are most commonly responsible for breaches of human rights which occur within their own territory,111 international law recognises a variety of situations in which States may have broader responsibility for human rights violations occurring elsewhere. Two such situations are where a State: (a) exercises physical control or authority over persons extraterritorially (where they are, for instance, in the State’s external custody or the custody of its agent, albeit on foreign soil);112 or (b) exercises effective control over an area outside the State’s territory (by, for instance, an external military presence in a war zone overseas).113 115. Modern international lawyers argue that these various models of State responsibility are all ways of giving effect to a more basic question, namely whether or not a State has, as a matter of fact in any given situation, ‘power or control over the enjoyment of’ relevant human rights.114 That way of looking at things – dubbed the functional approach115 –recognizes that there will be circumstances where, by dint of the arrangements between countries in a specific circumstance, a State will have the ability to affect compliance with (or violation of) human rights outside its territory. 116. Thus, in the context of the fundamental human right to life, the UN Human Rights Committee has clarified that every State: ‘has an obligation to respect and to ensure the rights … of all persons who are within its territory and all persons subject to its jurisdiction, that is, all persons over whose enjoyment of the right to life it exercises power or effective control. This includes persons located outside any territory effectively controlled by the State, whose right to life is nonetheless impacted by its military or other activities in a direct and reasonably foreseeable manner.’116 117. As Judge Bonello of the European Court of Human Rights put it in his concurring opinion in the case of Al-Skeini v United Kingdom: ‘States ensure the observance of human rights in five primordial ways: firstly, by not violating … human rights; secondly, by having in place systems which prevent breaches of human rights; thirdly, by investigating complaints of human rights abuses; fourthly, by scourging those of their agents who infringe human rights; and finally, by compensating the victims of breach of human rights. These constitute the basic minimum functions assumed by every State … Very simply put, a State has jurisdiction … whenever the observance or the breach of any of these functions is within its authority and control… 43 RIGHTS & SECURITY INTERNATIONAL