Bonavero Institute of Human Rights Publishes Its First Report of 2025: The Absolute Prohibition of Refoulement and Exceptional Circumstances
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The Bonavero Institute of Human Rights is pleased to announce the release of its first report of 2025, titled ‘The Absolute Prohibition of Refoulement and Exceptional Circumstances’. The report analyses the legal issues arising in the context of pushbacks of asylum seekers at Europe's borders in situations where the entry of asylum seekers to European states may have been facilitated by third states. This, in political parlance, is characterized as ‘hybrid attacks’ or ‘instrumentalisation’ of migrants by third states.
The report reproduces the Third Party Intervention (TPI) submitted to the European Court of Human Rights in the case of C.O.C.G. and Others v Lithuania, currently pending before its Grand Chamber. The TPI was led by Professor Nora Markard (University of Münster) and co-authored by twenty-two legal academics. ‘Understanding and upholding the principle of non-refoulement has never been more critical’ said Professor Başak Çalı (Head of Research at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights), who is one of the academic contributors to this TPI.
The report offers an in-depth analysis of why none of the exception regimes found in international human rights law, international refugee law, international law of state responsibility and European Union law do not absolve member states of the Council of Europe to respect the absolute nature of the prohibition of refoulement in international law.
The case of C.O.C.G. and Others v Lithuania which concerns such pushbacks from Lithuania into Belarus, will be heard by the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights, together with two other cases, on 12 February 2025.
To mark the launch of the report, the Bonavero Institute and University of Münster are co-hosting an online panel on Wednesday 5th February 2025 at 4pm GMT. Başak Çalı (University of Oxford), Nora Markard (University of Münster), James C. Hathaway (University of Michigan) and Joyce De Coninck (European University Institute) will address the main legal findings of the report . The seminar will be chaired by Marlene Stiller (University of Münster).
Click here to register for the launch event on 5th February 2025 at 4pm GMT.
Follow this link to read our latest report. You can see our previous reports here.