The best interests of the child has become an central facet of the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in expulsion cases. This article argues that the indirect application of the best interests of the child as an interpretive benchmark for Article 8 ECHR is not the end point of State’s responsibilities under Article 3 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). This article argues that the ECtHR’s case law presents significant limitations in the subject matter scope of the best interests of the child, and limitations to the way in which it incorporates them into the Article 8 ECHR balancing exercise. This article acts as a thought experiment by modelling an alternative mode of decision-making. It asks what the best interests of the child might look like as the substantive human right at the centre of decisions about the expulsion of foreign nationals.

中文翻译：

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将儿童的最大利益作为国家级驱逐决定的核心的实质性人权

儿童的最大利益已成为欧洲人权法院 (ECtHR) 驱逐案件判例的核心方面。本文认为，间接适用儿童的最大利益作为 ECHR 第 8 条的解释基准，并不是联合国《儿童权利公约》（UNCRC）第 3 条规定的国家责任的终点。本文认为，ECtHR 的判例法对儿童最大利益的主题范围存在重大限制，并限制了将其纳入 ECHR 第 8 条平衡工作的方式。本文通过对另一种决策模式进行建模来充当思想实验。