Undocumented Migrant Women in Europe : A Human Rights Perspective from Public International Law

This article explores the implications of viewing undocumented migrant women through the lens of public international law, particularly European human rights law. It argues for the incorporation of the UN normative and interpretative framework on the human rights of undocumented migrants into European legal and judicial analysis. The UN legal architecture constitutes an essential component to better understand the transnational phenomenon of migration in an interrelated world with combined and overlapping legal regimes. These instruments crafted within the realm of public international law may also play a key orienting role for the European Court of Human Rights to adequately uphold the rights of (female) undocumented migrants and for States to attend more justly to the dire conditions of many undocumented migrant women and girls in Europe.