Council of Europe Expulsion and the European Convention on Human Rights: The Foundations of Involuntary Treaty Withdrawal

Abstract Article 58 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) contains a provision which allows for the involuntary withdrawal, or expulsion, of a State from the ECHR if it has been expelled from, or ceased to be a member of, the Council of Europe (CoE). By comparing Russia's exit from the ECHR in 2022 with that of Greece in 1969, this article demonstrates that involuntary withdrawal poses a number of legal problems—partly as a result of it not having been considered during the drafting of the ECHR or the Statute of the CoE, and partly because of the highly unclear basis on which involuntary withdrawal operates. The article then conducts a comparative analysis of other regional human rights systems and public international law principles on treaty withdrawal in order to suggest a more comprehensive legal foundation for expulsion.