ECHR: is Europe about to break with convention?

European leaders have agreed to look at reforming the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), following pressure from governments accusing the court of overreaching and restricting national security policies in migration cases.

Alain Berset, chief of the the Council of Europe, the body that oversees the ECHR, said ministers at the key summit today had taken an “important first step forward together” to agree a political declaration on migration and the ECHR, and support a new recommendation to deter smuggling of migrants “with full respect for human rights”.

Keir Starmer had earlier called on European leaders to reform the ECHR in a bid to deal with a migrant crisis that he says is being weaponised by the far-right. The former international human rights lawyer urged members to “push for a modernisation of the interpretation” of the 75-year-old ECHR treaty that guarantees the rights of refugees.

In a joint letter in The Guardian with Danish PM Mette Frederiksen, whose social democrat government’s tough stance on immigration is seen as a model for Labour, the PM said the “current asylum framework was created for another era” but “can evolve to reflect the challenges of the 21st century”.

What did the commentators say?

Human rights campaigners, Labour peers and some MPs have “condemned” the government for calling for changes, “arguing they could open the door to countries abandoning some of the world’s most vulnerable people”, reported The Guardian. They also argue the PM “should not be diluting protections that pander to the right, amid deepening concerns from charities that its rhetoric could demonise refugees”.

“Closing our borders to refugees is undoubtedly a crime. But worse than that, it is a mistake”, said Thomas de Waal, Senior Fellow at Carnegie Europe.

The combination of “dubious deals, pushbacks at sea, and draconian deportation policies may look like success” but “every analysis tells us that Europe’s ageing population and shrinking workforce mean we need new workers” to “help generate the economic dynamism we so desperately lack”.

So, “despite the illusion of control, we are storing up political and economic trouble for the future” with a policy that will “undermine growth, strain public finances, and erode the welfare state”.

Yet there is growing consensus across Europe that something needs to be done. Critics of the convention, which came into force in 1953, as well as some supporters, say it is “woefully outdated as it does not reflect today’s reality of people smuggling gangs and the weaponisation of migrants by rogue states”, said The Telegraph.

While there is still “no suggestion” EU leaders will scrap the ECHR entirely, as some on the right including Reform UK and latterly the Conservatives “dream of doing”, a growing number of member states have called for it to be “reinterpreted” to address current migration challenges.

What next?

Berset told reporters that the “living instrument” is possible to adapt and work will begin to adopt the declaration in Moldova in May 2026.

The key parts of the ECHR up for debate will be Article 8, on the right to family life, and Article 3, the ban on torture or inhumane treatment. Both are often cited in deportation-blocking court cases and are seen as the main legal obstacles to the government’s radical asylum changes set out by the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood last month.

There has been some outcry at moves to water-down these provisions but “to put it bluntly,” Daniel Thym, Professor of European Law at the University of Konstanz, said in a piece for Verfassungsblog, “Europe would not plunge into a dark age of injustice” if the interpretation of Article 3 with regard to Dublin transfers were “reversed”.

It is a sign of how crucial Starmer sees this issue he sent both his Justice Secretary David Lammy and Attorney General Richard Hermer to Strasbourg today to make the case for updating the convention.

“Two of his closest allies” have “one task in mind”, said Politico London Playbook: “securing reforms to the ECHR to save his Labour government and the 75-year-old treaty from those on the right who want to ditch both entirely”. “No pressure!”