Lifting the Organisational Veil: Positive Obligations of the European Union Following Accession to the European Convention on Human Rights

Abstract

This article examines the likely positive obligations of the European Union (‘EU’) following its approaching accession to the European Convention on Human Rights. By focusing on the Dublin Regulation and recent asylum seeker returns to Greece as breaches of the prohibition on inhuman and degrading treatment, the article demonstrates that in dysfunctional areas of EU regulation, quite concrete changes will be necessary in order to meet the standards required thus far by the approach of the European Court of Human Rights and general principles of international law. This seems all the more probable given the prescriptive nature of the relationship between the EU and member states in the area of immigration. Ultimately, the article argues that current EU law fails to meet the requisite human rights obligations to protect and prevent, investigate, deter and prosecute. In the absence of reforms including a proposed suspension of transfers mechanism, the article concludes that the EU is likely to be condemned by the European Court of Human Rights for failing to meet its obligations under art 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights.