Additional information
According to information published here http://www.youatnotes.de/web/youatnotes/wiki-xpages.nsf/dx/Work_with_events (it's a valuable resource of information btw)
this ... should return event handler object
this.getParent() ... should return the component that owns the event
But it seems not to be true at least in this particular case (e.g. beforeRenderResponse of a custom control). If I check the type of the object and its ID I get the following:
typeof this ... com.ibm.xsp.component.UIViewRootEx2
this.getId() ... null
typeof this.getParent() ... object
this.getParent().getId() ... com.ibm.xsp.exception.EvaluationExceptionEx error