British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak wants to promote a common approach to irregular migration at the Council of Europe summit in Iceland. "It is obvious that our current international system is not working and our communities and the world's most vulnerable people are paying the price," Sunak said in a statement late Monday night. "We need to do more to work together across borders and jurisdictions to end illegal migration and stop the boats."
The number of people arriving in the UK across the English Channel, mostly in small inflatable boats, has risen sharply in recent years. Sunak's Conservative Party wants to deter migrants with tough laws and deport irregular immigrants to Rwanda – regardless of their asylum status. This also led to a conflict with the European Court of Human Rights. Conservative hardliners in Britain called for the withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights. Critics, on the other hand, see the British project as a violation of international obligations.
The British government has now stressed the need for an international legal system that allows states to take the necessary steps. This includes a reform of the so-called Rule 39 of the Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). With this clause, judges had stopped a deportation flight from Great Britain to Rwanda at the last minute last year and provoked fierce criticism from the conservative British government. Sunak now wants to raise the hurdles for the intervention of the ECtHR in the asylum law.