Human Rights of Irregular Immigrants: A Challenge for the Universality of Human Rights

Irregular immigration is a phenomenon with a substantial impact for the majority of the countries. The paper analyses whether there is an adequate human rights framework for protection of irregular immigrants or whether the irregular status exempts the migrants from the protection of international human rights law. If this is the case, then the human rights universality has failed. The paper takes into consideration the developments in the International and EU Law, as well as in the jurisprudence of the international tribunals regarding protection of irregular immigrants. It is divided into three main sections. The first section informs briefly on the dynamics of irregular immigrants; the second section analyses the legislation on irregular immigration from the perspective of the state sovereignty, the third section analyses the human rights law and the protection it affords to irregular immigrants, pursuant to the interpretation of International tribunals.