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Through an extensive interpretation of the collective expulsion prohibition, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has for decades compensated for the lack of procedural rights in the European Convention on Human Rights in the expulsion and rejection of migrants at a border. Influenced by internal pressure due to diverging views of its judges and external pressure from member states, the ECtHR pursued a more regressive approach after 2016, culminating in 2020 in its N.D. and N.T. v. Spain judgment on Spain's policy of ‹hot returns›. This paper attempts to contextualise this shift and its consequences by, inter alia, analysing dissenting votes, judgments, and state practice. In the longer term, this line of jurisprudence could serve as a basis for justifying proposed European border procedures and have effects beyond the ECHR member state context.

The thesis explores the scope of protection, including the extraterritorial applicability of the prohibition of collective expulsion on a global level. It further carves out how and why the prohibition evolved into a procedural guarantee that binds states when expelling foreigners en masse. In doing so, the work assesses the guarantee enshrined in various regional and international human rights instruments.

In the past decades, the European Union and its member states have increasingly relied on externalization and non-arrival strategies for migration control. One of the latest developments is the decision by Malta and Italy to unilaterally close their ports to vessels carrying migrants rescued at sea. The article examines the conformity of such practices with the international law of the sea and focuses especially on the customary port of safety principle. It also addresses the applicability of the European Convention on Human Rights in cases where the rejected vessels have not entered the territory of a member state. The paper provides a novel approach for the establishment of the European Court of Human Rights' jurisdiction in such cases of extraterritorial migration control, arguing that the jurisdiction could be founded on the imputable-public-power-test. Based on the analysis of potential violations of rights guaranteed by the Convention and its Protocols, the respective practices may, depending on the individual cases, violate the non-refoulement principle and/or the prohibition of collective expulsion.

Analysing international law through the prism of "cynicism" makes it possible to look beyond overt disregard for international law, currently discussed in terms of a backlash or crisis. The concept allows to analyse and criticise structural features and specific uses of international law that seem detrimental to international law in a more subtle way. Unlike its ancient predecessor, cynicism nowadays refers not to a bold critique of power but to uses and abuses of international law that pursue one-sided interests tacitly disregarding the legal structure applied. From this point of view, the contributions critically reflect on the theoretical foundations of international law, in particular its relationship to power, actors such as the International Law Commission and international judges, and specific fields, including international human rights, humanitarian, criminal, tax and investment law.-- Provided by publisher.