President of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) Síofra O’Leary urged the UK government in a press conference held on Thursday in Strasbourg to abide by the interim measures it has issued against the Rwanda agreement under Rule 39 of the Rules of Court. The ECHR previously issued an urgent interim measures in 2022 against the UK government’s plan to remove a group of asylum seekers to Rwanda until a final decision had been made by UK courts.

O’Leary stated, “[T]here is a clear legal obligation under the [European] convention [on Human Rights] for states to comply with Rule 39 measures.” Rule 39 of the Rules of the court confers the power to “[t]he Chamber or, where appropriate, the President of the Section or a duty judge…at the request of a party or of any other person concerned, or of their own motion” to “indicate to the parties any interim measure which they consider should be adopted in the interests of the parties or of the proper conduct of the proceedings.” In other words, it is an urgent order issued by the ECHR where there is a “real risk of serious and irreversible harm.”

The UK government has been the centre of attention since it has announced it will be bypassing the Supreme Court’s ruling, which found its Rwanda plan to be unlawful, and announced its Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) bill in December 2023. The government keeps pushing its plan to remove asylum seekers to Rwanda despite warnings, as the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) recently said that the transfer of asylum seekers under the UK’s new Rwanda arrangement violates international law. The House of Commons passed the Safety of Rwanda Bill last week. It is now awaiting examination at the House of Lords.

O’Leary added that the UK has “always complied with Rule 39 and measures going all the way back to the old commission in the 1950s” and that it has “publicly declared the need for other states to comply with Rule 39.” She reaffirmed the European court’s role when it is seized to examine “any convention issues which may arise” in cases which relates to individual circumstances.