Forty-six European coun­tries, including the UK, have signed an agree­ment that expli­citly endorses plans to send failed asylum seekers to third coun­tries.

The polit­ical ‘Chişinău’ declar­a­tion from the mem­bers of the Coun­cil of Europe, the body that over­sees the European con­ven­tion on human rights (ECHR), said states had an “undeni­able sov­er­eign right” to con­trol their bor­ders.

Reports says the UK is now seek­ing a deal with an unnamed third coun­try to potentially create offshore deten­tion centres.

The political declaration came after calls from some member states for stricter approaches to fight irregular migration and facilitate deportations.

The declaration also says that for states there is both an obligation and a necessity to protect their borders in compliance with the Convention.

It said that nations “exposed to mass arrivals” can pursue new approaches to deter irregular migration including “third country ‘return hubs’, and cooperation with countries of transit.”

But human rights campaigners have said such policies are inhumane and compare them to the deportation policies of United States President Donald Trump.

Spokesperson for the Brussels-based rights group PICUM Chiara Catelli said the declaration could weaken both the court and convention.

“Governments are effectively seeking to pressure an independent Court into weakening long-established human rights protections in order to facilitate deportations, with the risk of deporting people where they could face torture, inhuman or degrading treatment, or where they would stop receiving life-saving medical care,” she said.

“A two-tier human rights system based on migration status is an affront to the basic principle that human rights are universal,” said Eve Geddie, director of Amnesty International’s European Institutions Office.

Italy sent several dozen migrants with no permission to remain in the country to a ‘return hub’ in Albania last year, becoming the first European Union country to send rejected migrants to a nation outside the EU.

The dir­ector of the Migra­tion Obser­vat­ory at Oxford Uni­versity Madeleine Sumption said the fallout from the declaration was unclear.

“It’s not clear how much impact a polit­ical declar­a­tion makes given that judges’ decisions are also driven by domestic and inter­na­tional case law, which this declar­a­tion does not change. How much con­crete dif­fer­ence it will make remains to be seen.”

Human rights organ­isa­tions said they were con­cerned by the declar­a­tion. Akiko Hart,

Dir­ector of the UK NGO  Liberty Akiko Hart said: “The Chişinău polit­ical declar­a­tion on the ECHR is a hugely sig­ni­fic­ant moment”.

“We are deeply con­cerned that chan­ging how the ECHR is used by UK courts will open the door to a gradual weak­en­ing of human rights pro­tec­tions,” Prof Hart said.