The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), Amnesty International and International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) sent a letter ahead of the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers’ 135th Session in Chișinău, on 14–15 May 2026, addressed to senior leaders of the Council of Europe and its Member States.
The Session will be considering a Political Declaration, following a process initiated by a May 2025 letter from nine European Union Member States and pursued through extraordinary meetings of the Steering Committee for Human Rights (CDDH) between January and March 2026, in which the ICJ, Amnesty International and FIDH participated as observers.
The Declaration contains proposals that could serve to substantially weaken human rights protections throughout Europe in respect of the European Convention on Human Rights, particularly as concerns refugees, asylum seekers and migrants.
Authoritative interpretation of Convention obligations is, under the Convention, a matter for the European Court of Human Rights. Its case-law is the source of authoritative guidance on the application of those obligations, and intergovernmental instruments must not purport to narrow or reinterpret the Convention in a manner inconsistent with the protection of human rights. At the Reykjavik Summit in 2023, Heads of State and Government rejected “attacks at high political levels on the rights protected by the Convention and the judgments of the Court seeking to safeguard them”, a commitment the Chișinău Political Declaration must honour.
The application of exceptional or separate rules in migration cases would be incompatible with the Convention and with States Parties’ other obligations under international law. It would interfere with the Court’s independent interpretation of the Convention, undermine the principle of non-discrimination, and call into question the equal protection of Convention rights for all individuals within States Parties’ jurisdiction. Convention rights are owed to everyone within that jurisdiction, regardless of migration status.
The letter urges governments to uphold the integrity of the European Convention on Human Rights and safeguard the independence, impartiality and authority of the European Court of Human Rights. The organisations warn that current political discussions relating to migration risk weakening long-standing human rights protections and undermining the universality of human rights across Europe.
The ICJ, Amnesty International and FIDH call on States Parties to the Convention to reaffirm their obligations under international law, respect the Court’s jurisprudence, and ensure that the Political Declaration adopted in Chișinău strengthens, rather than diminishes, the Convention system.
Read the full letter here.
