This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: International human rights law protects migrants once they are within a state's jurisdiction but stops short of recognizing the right to enter another country, according to a new analysis in the International Journal of Migration and Border Studies that argues this makes the system incomplete. The author distinguishes between protecting the rights of migrants during their journeys and recognizing migration itself as a human rights issue.
Under current international law, states generally retain the power to control entry and residence of foreign nationals. They argue that this approach creates a gap in the legal framework: International human rights law recognizes freedom of movement within states but holds that cross-border movement is largely governed by discretion at the national level. The paper discusses an alternative in which people have a right to immigrate and so are entitled to cross a border and enter another state, subject to justified restrictions.
Such a right does not currently exist in international law. Recognizing such a right would not mean removing all the current limits on immigration. However, it would change the legal question asked at the border crossing so that restrictions on entry would have to be considered as limitations on a human right and justified accordingly, rather than resting on the prior assumption that states are free to exclude.
The paper therefore calls for immigration to be treated as part of human rights law, bringing cross-border movement closer to the legal framework already applied to freedom of movement within states. Frédéric Mégret, An international human rights law of migration Reflections on the place of a right to immigrate, International Journal of Migration and Border Studies (2026). DOI: 10.1504/ijmbs.2026.156399 Bachelor's in mathematical biology, Master's in creative writing.
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