It is not an easy thing to say thank you. In order to express my gratitude for the support in a work like this book, I would like to say a sincere and thousandfold ‘thank you’ to all the people who directly and indirectly supported and helped me finish my work. I will try hard to reciprocate not only with words, but with my own support for these people in the future. But beyond that, it is difficult not to forget any colleagues or friends (sometimes those two categories overlap of course) who accompanied me along the way. The first thank you goes to Renate Kicker. Without her, my doctoral thesis and thus the book at hand would most probably have been of a completely different nature. On my second day at the Institute of International Law of the University of Graz, she approached me and suggested the very topic of my thesis, the European Union’s accession to the European Convention on Human Rights. She therefore gave my work the initial spark for future development. Any comments or complaints as to why I did not choose another topic must consequently be addressed to her, not me. Seriously, all joking aside, thank you again for such a wonderful and intriguing topic which accompanied me for two years and eventually became an important part of my life.