Strategic Litigation

For years, the Greek refugee camp Moria was severely overcrowded and suffered from a critical lack of basic necessities. Moria gained notoriety after many refugees were held there following the EU-Turkey deal. In 2020, a devastating fire broke out, leaving many refugees homeless.

The Dutch Council for Refugees, together with its partners, submitted a third-party intervention in this case. The intervention emphasized that countries that have signed the European Convention on Human Rights must ensure proper reception conditions and procedures that respect human dignity. The lack of basic necessities such as shelter and medical care constitutes a violation of the Convention. It was also argued that long delays in asylum procedures contradict international regulations and result in prolonged family separations.

In 2023, the Court ruled that the conditions in the Greek refugee camp Moria were inhumane and degrading.

A Syrian asylum seeker arrived in Germany hoping to apply for protection. Instead, he was deported to Greece on the same day - without any review of whether he would be safe there. This was part of a broader policy between Germany and Greece, based on an administrative agreement, to quickly return asylum seekers.

We supported the case at the European Court of Human Rights by providing expert legal analysis. The court emphasised one of the most fundamental rules of international refugee law, that no one can be deported without an individual risk assessment. Since Greece had at the time well-documented issues with inhumane conditions for asylum seekers, the decision was a critical reminder to all European states that deportations must follow international law and include proper safeguards.

We represented a 15-year-old Afghan boy who fled the Taliban and reached a Greek island by boat. Instead of processing his asylum claim, Greek coast guards forced him onto a ship the next day, took him out to sea, and left him adrift on an inflatable raft. He was eventually rescued by the Turkish coast guard.

This brutal practice - known as a "pushback" - is alarmingly common. We took the case to the European Court of Human Rights alongside top human rights lawyers, arguing that Greece had violated international law. Unfortunately, because the boy’s phone and belongings were taken from him, he could not provide enough evidence to win his own case. However, the court acknowledged that this incident may have happened as described, and that strong indications suggest these illegal pushbacks are a systemic practice in Greece. This ruling increases international pressure on Greece to stop these inhumane and unlawful removals of asylum seekers from its territory.

We supported a case against FRONTEX, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, which was brought before the highest EU court, the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union. FRONTEX is an EU institution and the EU’s ‘eyes and ears’ at the external borders. The agency had worked with Greek authorities to deport a family - including children - back to Türkiye, even though their application for asylum had not yet been processed. This deportation forced the family to flee again, this time to Iraq.

This case is monumental because it challenges whether an EU institution can be at all held accountable for unlawful actions. The fact that the Grand Chamber took over the case shows how significant it is - not just for refugees, but for anyone affected by wrongful actions by EU institutions. The ruling could set an important legal precedent for holding EU institutions responsible for human rights violations.