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.