This work reflects the law as it stood, to the best of the author's knowledge, on 20 June 2010. The topicality of the issues covered in this book means, however, that these areas of law are still very much developing. Readers are advised to pay attention to more recent case law. At the time of writing the following cases of particular interest were still pending before the European Court of Human Rights: Hirsi and Others v. Italy, European Court of Human Rights, Application No. 277765/09, lodged 26 May 2009 (concerning Italy's high-seas interception and pushback of migrants to Libya); Al-Skeini and others v. the United Kingdom, Application No. 55721/07, lodged 11 December 2007; and Al-Jedda v. United Kingdom, Application No. 27021/08, lodged 3 June 2008 (both concerning possible extraterritorial jurisdiction for actions of the United Kingdom in Iraq). All website addresses were accurate as at 20 June 2010.

Earlier versions of the author's arguments in the present work have been published elsewhere. Parts of the arguments in chapters 3 and 4 have appeared in ‘Growing barriers: international refugee law’, in M. Gibney and S. Skogly (eds.), Universal Human Rights and Extraterritorial Obligations (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010) and ‘The refugee, the sovereign and the sea: EU interdiction policies in the Mediterranean’, in R. Adler-Nissen and T. Gammeltoft-Hansen (eds.), Sovereignty Games: Instrumentalizing Sovereignty in Europe and Beyond (New York: Palgrave, 2008).