The UK and the echr After Brexit: The Challenge of Immigration Control

Abstract

This article examines the challenges that immigration control-related political imperatives in the United Kingdom (UK) have posed for UK compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights (echr) and evaluates the challenges that the UK’s moving away from echr compliance pose for its post-Brexit relationship with the European Union (EU) and its member states. The contribution begins with an examination of the constitutional parameters of UK (non-)compliance with the echr in the field of immigration control and the implications of this for the post-Brexit arrangements with the EU and its member states. The contribution then focuses on substantive immigration and refugee law and the impact of the current situation on asylum transfer co-operation within and outside of the EU. Through these areas, the article examines how EU law has infiltrated the interpretation of the echr with the result of raising standards of protection for asylum seekers and migrants and hampering the exercise of state sovereignty in the field.