Writing ahead of today’s meeting, the Commissioner for Human Rights stated: “As the European Council is set to address the Union’s response to migration, one topic should be prominent on all points of its agenda: states’ obligations to uphold the human rights of migrants.”

Writing in a ‘Comment’ article, the Commissioner for Human Rights states: “It is imperative that states work towards the abolition of migrant detention. This does not mean giving up on managing one’s borders, including decisions over who enters a country and who can stay. It means investing in alternative measures to manage migration effectively, which are not as far-reaching and harmful as detention.”