work, may require access to alternative forms of support and accommodation to ensure that core entitlements guaranteed by the right are not infringed.272 The European Convention on Human Rights has been interpreted by both the European Court of Human Rights and the House of Lords273 to provide relevant obligations. For example, the right not to be subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment274 can be engaged where asylum-seekers, who have no other means of support, are left destitute.275 In 2011 the European Court of Human Rights considered this issue in a case brought by an asylum seeker who had been transferred from Belgium to Greece under the Dublin Regulation.276 The Court held, in respect of living conditions, that: “The Court considers that the Greek authorities have not had due regard to the applicant’s vulnerability as an asylum seeker and must be held responsible, because of their inaction, for the situation in which he has found himself for several months, living in the street, with no resources or access to sanitary facilities, and without any means of providing for his essential needs. The Court considers that the applicant has been the victim of humiliating treatment showing a lack of respect for his dignity and that this situation has, without doubt, aroused in him feelings of fear, anguish or inferiority capable of inducing desperation. It considers that such living conditions, combined with the prolonged uncertainty in which he has remained and the total lack of any prospects of his situation improving, have attained the level of severity required to fall within the scope of Article 3 of the Convention.”277 The relevant domestic caselaw also focuses on the treatment of asylum-seekers. Under the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, section 55, the Secretary of State is prohibited from providing asylum support to asylum-seekers who did not claim asylum “as soon as is reasonably practicable”. An exception, contained in section 55(5), gave the power for the Secretary of State to provide support, even in the case of a late claim “to the extent necessary to prevent a breach of the person’s ECHR rights” and to provide support where the applicant has a dependent child under 18 years old. Once the provision was brought into force and applied in practice, it received significant judicial scrutiny, resulting in a landmark decision of the House of Lord’s in R (Limbuela) v Secretary of State for the Home Department 96 272 See United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (hereafter the CESCR) General Comment 3, The nature of State parties obligations, 12/14/1990: General Comment 18, The Right to Work, E/C.12/GC/18. 273 Formerly the highest court in the UK. Its function has now been taken over by the Supreme Court. 274 Protected by Article 3 ECHR. The relevant part of ICCPR, Article 6 provides, “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of punishment.” 275 UK case law that preceded the coming into force of the Human Rights Act 1998, indicated that such treatment could breach protections in the common law See M, R (on the application of) v London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham [1996] EWHC Admin 90 (8th October, 1996), per Collins, J. “The right to life is a fundamental human right. It is one that the law will protect. This consideration was referred to in R v Inhabitants of Eastbourne (1803) 4 East 103, where Lord Ellenborough C.J. said at p.107: “As to there being no obligation for maintaining poor foreigners before the statutes ascertaining the different methods of acquiring settlements, the law of humanity, which is anterior to all positive laws, obliges us to afford them relief, to save them from starving...”. 276 M.S.S. v. Belgium and Greece, Application no. 30696/09, Council of Europe: European Court of Human Rights, 21 January 2011, available at: http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/4d39bc7f2.htm. 277 Ibid., para. 263. Mapping statelessness