UN Experts Sound Alarm Over Europe's New Migration Declaration
"Migration governance must remain grounded in human rights. Border management cannot come at the expense of the prohibition of torture, ill-treatment and other serious harms, effective remedies, and non-discrimination," the experts said in a written statement.
Adopted in May, the declaration was framed by its proponents as a clarification of how the European human rights system should function in migration cases, reaffirming states' sovereign right to control their borders. Critics, however, contend it risks establishing a two-tier rights system and increasing political pressure on courts to interpret protections more restrictively.
The experts warned that recent political initiatives seeking to rebalance the European Convention on Human Rights in migration matters risk normalizing violations and entrenching a narrower reading of state obligations.
"We are disappointed that the Declaration materialises concerns we previously raised, including the prioritisation of coercive migration control, restrictions on access to asylum, expanded detention and returns, the weakening of due process, and other actions that could lead to death, torture, ill-treatment, enforced disappearance or persecution of migrants," the experts said.
They further cautioned that the declaration's renewed emphasis on subsidiarity and a potentially expansive margin of appreciation for states "should not become a proxy to justify measures that violate States' obligations under the Convention and undermine independent oversight by the European Court of Human Rights."
The experts flagged that so-called "new approaches" — including extraterritorial asylum processing, return hubs, and cooperation with transit countries — raise serious questions about compatibility with international human rights law, particularly the principle of non-refoulement, which prohibits returning individuals to places where they face serious harm.
A central flashpoint concerns Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which enshrines an absolute prohibition on torture and inhuman or degrading treatment. The declaration asserts that the threshold for treatment to qualify as inhuman or degrading should remain "high and constant," while avoiding what it characterizes as "unnecessary constraints on decisions to extradite or to expel foreign nationals."
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