Eppur si muove!: New Judicial Paths for the Protection of Social Rights of Undocumented Migrants in Europe

Abstract

This work aims to analyze how the Court of Justice of the European Union has founded the protection of certain social rights of irregular migrants in the notions of human dignity and vulnerability. For that purpose, the paper addresses a comparative analysis of the European Court of Justice’s case law and the jurisprudence of other European human rights mechanisms: The European Court of Human Rights and the European Committee of Social Rights. The authors try to explore, in this sense, if it is possible to talk about a judicial dialogue aiming to the establishment of a minimum standard of socio-economic rights of irregular migrants in Europe and how the European Court of Justice’s case-law has contributed to it. Finally, the paper evaluates if we can talk about a vertical judicial dialogue in this regard. In particular, it examines how the Constitutional Court of certain Member States, in particular the Spanish Constitutional Court, have contributed to this debate and if their case law meets the international human rights law standards.