Migrant ‘Push Backs’ at Sea are Prohibited ‘Collective Expulsions’
By Nikolaos Sitaropoulos
Collective expulsions of migrants at sea have often resulted in tragedy and are prohibited by Protocol No. 4 to the ECHR.
In the early hours of 20 January 2014, a boat coming from Turkey carrying twenty-seven Afghan and Syrian migrants was intercepted by the Greek coast guard near the isle of Farmakonisi, in the southeast Aegean Sea, and later capsized. Eight migrant children and three migrant women drowned. While this operation was described by the Greek authorities as a rescue, the migrant survivors adamantly alleged that it was, in fact, a ‘push back.’ ‘Push back’ is a widely-used term that has overshadowed the legal term, ‘collective expulsion,’ the prohibition of which was expressly provided for in 1963 in the one-sentence, oft-forgotten, Article 4 of Protocol No. 4 (‘Article 4-4’) to the European Convention on Human Rights (‘ECHR’).
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