Jurisdiction means no less and no more than “authority over” and “control of.” In relation to [human rights obligations], jurisdiction is neither territorial nor extra-territorial: it ought to be functional … The duties assumed [by States] go hand in hand with the duty to perform and observe them. Jurisdiction arises from the mere fact of having assumed those obligations and from having the capability to fulfill them (or not fulfill them).’117 118. This way of looking at State responsibility for violations occurring overseas has recently been affirmed by the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions in her report on the investigation into the unlawful death of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which concluded that the State’s responsibility to protect the right to life ‘may be invoked extra-territorially in circumstances where that particular State has the capacities to protect the right to life of an individual against an immediate or foreseeable threat to his or her life.’ 118 As such, European States arguably bear direct responsibility for those same human rights violations, and are obliged to bring them to an end by the means available to them – namely, repatriation so that the women and children detained can be dealt with according to law and in conditions which reflect their basic humanity. 119. The results of RSI’s research in North East Syria are clear: the al Hol and Roj camps are the site of widespread violations of basic human rights, from the right to life and right to freedom from arbitrary detention to rights of humane and dignified treatment, rights to food, water, and health, and the rights of children to education. Those violations are occurring outside European territory, and European military forces are not in direct effective control of the camps. But European States cannot continue to adopt the position they have done to date, that this is all better managed off their shores, and watch these violations being perpetrated in real time, especially when, by virtue of their special relationships with the SDF and AANES, European States have clear power to control their detained nationals’ enjoyment of rights by bringing the unlawful conditions of detention in the camps to an end through repatriation. Those powers are capable of being exercised – indeed repatriations have occurred throughout recent years on a sporadic basis – and European States’ persistent refusal to repatriate their nationals en masse directly and reasonably foreseeably prolongs and exacerbates the human rights violations suffered by women and children in the al Hol and Roj camps. As such, European States arguably bear direct responsibility for those same human rights violations, and are obliged to bring them to an end by the means available to them – namely, repatriation so that the women and children detained can be dealt with according to law and in conditions which reflect their basic humanity. 44 RIGHTS & SECURITY INTERNATIONAL