Protection of Migrants at Sea

Abstract

The last decade has revealed an unprecedent increase in migratory flows by sea, highlighting the need for better regulation of migrants’ rights at sea. The purpose of this thesis is to analyse different ways of providing protection to migrants at sea in order to examine whether the existing legal norms provide a sufficient legal basis for their protection. The main focus is devoted to the three different forms of protection of migrants - rescue at sea, criminalization of migrant smuggling and substantive protection of migrants’ rights, while examining the correlation between the rules of international maritime law, international refugee law and international human rights law.