Contributors

Dr Michelle Foster is an Associate Professor and Director of the International Refugee Law Research Programme in the Institute for International Law and the Humanities at Melbourne Law School. Her teaching and research interests are in the areas of public law, international refugee law, and international human rights law. Michelle has LLM and SJD degrees from the University of Michigan Law School, where she was a Michigan Grotius Fellow. She also holds an LLB and BComm (Hons 1) from the University of New South Wales. Prior to her gr... Read More >

The Hon Anthony North is a Judge of the Federal Court of Australia. The Federal Court is a superior court of record which exercises both first instance and appellate jurisdiction. A large part of the Court's work is reviewing administrative decisions, particularly decisions of the Refugee Review Tribunal determining Australia's protection obligations to applicants for refugee status. Justice North was appointed to the Federal Court in 1995. He also holds commissions as a Judge of the Industrial Relations Court of Australia and the Sup... Read More >

Mr. Hermann's involvement with refugee cases began through course work with Amnesty International. He joined the refugee-branch of Amnesty International's Vienna office, specializing in legal representation of asylum seekers in detention, and later worked at the Caritas legal advice center for foreigners in Vienna. He is presently working as legal assistant to Dr. Rainer, focusing on human rights, migration and asylum matters.

Mag. Newald is currently a Judge of the High Court for Asylum. Prior to this he was a member of the Independent Federal Asylum Board (UBAS) and has also previously worked as a research officer at the Austrian Constitutional Court and in various courts in Vienna, and served as an assistant to Prof. Attila Fenyves (Institute for Civil Law, Vienna University's School of Law).

Ms. Berkowitz has been working as a legal assistant with the UNHCR Representative office in the Republic of Belarus. She represents the interests of refugees and asylum seekers in the state institution and courts of the Republic of Belarus, including the High Court. She is also the author of the book 'Legal Defense of Refugees in the Republic of Belarus'.

As Madame Justice of the Appeals Court, Ms. Ugnivenko deals with cases of refugees and asylum seekers, reviewing decisions of the lower courts. In addition, from 1999 to 2002, she also issued original judgments on such cases. As of 2002, she is the only Belorussian member of the International Association of Refugee Judges.

Justice Katelijne Declerck has worked almost exclusively in the area of legal protection of refugees since 1979 while in Thailand during the South East Asian refugee crisis. After one year at UNICEF, she returned to UNHCR from 1981 untill 1993, when she was appointed judge in the Belgian Appeals Commission for Refugees. Currently, she is a member of council of the International Association of Refugee Law Judges.

Prof. Dr. Dirk Vanheule holds law degrees from the universities of Ghent (Licentiate, 1989), Toronto (LL.M. 1991) and Antwerp (Dr.iur. 2001). He is professor of law at the Faculty of Law in Antwerp where he teaches legal methodology, comparative constitutional law, public procedural law and migration and asylum law. He is vice-director the Centre for Migration and Intercultural Studies (CeMIS) at the University of Antwerp.

Since 1990 he has also been a member of the Ghent Bar, practising in the field of administra... Read More >

Dr. Dauvergne holds the Canada Research Chair in Migration Law. She joined the Faculty in 2002 from the University of Sydney. Catherine completed her Ph.D. in Law at the Australian National University and her undergraduate law training at UBC. Catherine has served as the Associate Dean of Graduate Studies and Research. She was law clerk to Chief Justice Antonio Lamer.

Catherine's research is in the areas of immigration and refugee law. She has been involved in internationally collaborative work regarding first instance refug... Read More >

Sarah Marsden is a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Law at the Unversity of British Columbia. Her studies focus on precarious labour migration in Canada and as a global phenomenon, drawing on scholarship from multiple disciplines. She is interested in documenting the impact of legal regulatory structures on precarious migrants, particularly with regard to rights and membership in the host state.

Sarah obtained her LL.B. and LL.M from the University of Victoria, and subsequently spent time working as a judicial clerk for the Fe... Read More >

Born March 21, 1948 in Paris, France. Education at Collège Notre-Dame (B.A.), Université de Montréal (LLL) and McGill University (M.A.). Called to the Quebec Bar in 1976. 1988 to 2003, member and coordinator of the Immigration and Refugee Board. Specialized in war crimes and crimes against humanity. 1986 to 1988, Chief of Coordination and Evidence, Counsel in the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crime Section of the Department of Justice Canada. 1979 to 1988, Government of Canada, amongst other assignments, repr... Read More >

Judge Jan Dvorak graduated from the Faculty of Law at Masaryk's University in Brno. He currently works as a Judge (Chair of Senate) in the tribunal in Hradec Kralove (branch of Pardubice). He has published articles in several Czech law journals, including 'Pravni rozhledy', 'Pravni radce', and 'Sbirka rozhodnuti Nejvyssiho spravniho soudu'.

Mr. Kosar holds a Masters in Law, M.A. in International Law and is currently a PhD candidate. His primary areas of research are International Refugee Law, Human Rights Law, Immigration Law, Law of State Immunity and International Criminal Law. Mr. Kosar is a member of American Society of International Law and European Society of International Law. He has been involved in the revision of the Czech Asylum Act and published articles on both refugee and human rights law in several law journals. He is also involved in the Refugee Law Clinic ... Read More >

Jens Vedsted-Hansen earned his LL.M and LL.D. from the University of Aarhus, where he is a Professor of Law. Having worked as a research scholar at the University of Aalborg, Faculty of Social Sciences, and as assistant and associate professor at the University of Aarhus Law School, he became a research fellow at the Danish Centre for Human Rights in 1993. In 1997 he joined the Faculty of Law at the University of Copenhagen as an associate professor. Since 1999 he has been a professor of human rights law at the University of Aarhus Law ... Read More >

Ms. Sirva has worked in the field of refugee law since 1995 and was a senior lawyer and expert at the Finnish Refugee Advice Centre until 2006. She holds an LL.M and is at present pursuing post-graduate studies for Doctor of Laws in the Turku University. Her thesis is Refugees' Right to Family Reunification under International Law. Through her volunteer work, she has been a sponsor of four children and one family in Ethiopia, Kenya and India. She has a special interest in the Horn of Africa, especially Somalia and Eritrea. She has spent... Read More >

Ms. Zederman is the head of the legal department for the Refugee Appeals Board in France, responding to all questions regarding refugee and administrative law as well as interpreting the recent right to asylum law. She also organizes special hearings whose purpose is to settle points of law that have no precedent case law ensuring consistency with existing case law.

Dr. Constantin Hruschka works for UNHCR in Geneva. Previously he worked for UNCHR in Germany where he provided, amongst other things, training on the 1951 Convention and on European refugee law and its impact on national practice. Before joining UNHCR in 2004, Dr. Hruschka practiced as a lawyer and as a scientific researcher at the Universities of Munich and Würzburg. He has written on international refugee law and its impact on the national aliens law, as well as on several legal aspects of the European asylum system.

On 21 October, 2010 representatives of the EU member states' governments appointed Dimitrios Gratsias as judge at the General Court of the EU, replacing Mihalis Vilaras. His mandate lasts from 25 October 2010 to 31 August 2016. Previously, Judge Dimitrios Gratsias was a Judge on the Council of State, the supreme administrative court in Greece.

Costas Papadimitriou is Associate Professor on the Faculty of Law at the University of Athens. He is the Director of the Department of Environmental and Economic Studies and Greek Parliament Mediator-Arbitrator with the Organism of Mediation and Arbitration

Dr. Georgia Papgianni holds a Ph.D in European Migration Law and Policy from the European University Institute (Florence, Italy), Masters Degrees from the College of Europe (Bruges, Belgium) and the Université Libre de Bruxelles (Brussels, Belgium), and a B.A. in Legal Studies from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Thessaloniki, Greece). Since January 2002, she has worked for the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs in their Justice, Home Affairs and Schengen department, and she has also published various articles in the fie... Read More >

Mark Daly (Partner, Barnes & Daly, Hong Kong SAR, China) earned a law degree from Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto in 1992 and was admitted as a barrister and solicitor in Ontario, Canada. He was subsequently admitted as a solicitor in Hong Kong, England and Wales, and holds a Master of Laws in Human Rights from the University of Hong Kong. Working in Hong Kong since 1995, Mark has concentrated on human rights and refugee issues. He previously worked with Pam Baker and Company on judicial review and habeas corpus cases and ... Read More >

The Hon Mr. Justice Michael Hartmann was recently appointed to the Final Court of Appeal of the High Court, Hong Kong. Prior to this he was a judge for the Court of First Instance of the High Court. He qualified and practiced in Zimbabwe before moving to Hong Kong in 1983. Prior to appointment to the judiciary in 1991, Justice Hartmann worked as counsel in the Hong Kong Attorney General's Chambers, specializing in international criminal law. Since appointment he has presided over numerous judicial review hearings related to the Executiv... Read More >

Mr. Nagy holds a Masters degree in law and philosophy from the Eötvös Loránd University and pursued international studies at the Johns Hopkins University Bologna Center. In addition to his academic activity at both the Eötvös Loránd University International Law Department (since 1977) and the CEU (since 1990), he has often served as an expert for the Hungarian Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the Council of Europe. He is also involved in the work of three leading Hungarian NGOs (Menedék, Helsinki... Read More >

Dr. Manoj Kumar Sinha Recently joined the WB National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata as Professor of Law in 2009 and is also serving as Director of the Indian Society of International Law, New Delhi. He previously had held a prestigious visiting Professorship at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Lund, Sweden, from 2004-2005. Dr. Sinha completed his PhD in International Law from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and LL.M. in International Human Rights Law from the University of Notti... Read More >

Ms. Patricia Brazil is the Averill Deverill Lecturer in Law at Trinity College, Dublin. Her research interests include family and child law, immigration and asylum law, and criminal law. She graduated in 2001, qualified as a barrister in 2003, and received an M.LITT. She has worked at the Drug Court and researched sentencing policy in Ireland. A full-time researcher with the Law Reform Commission for a number of years, Professor Brazil did extensive teaching and lecturing at Trinity College prior to her full-time appointment there in 20... Read More >

Tomer Broude is a Senior Lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in the Faculty of Law and Department of International Relations, and the Academic Director of the Minerva Center for Human Rights. He is an expert on international economic law and its interaction with the rights of immigrants and refugees. He is involved in the drafting and promotion of the International Migrants' Bill of Rights, a project led by Georgetown University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the London School of Economics. He is one of the founders ... Read More >

Uzi Vogelman is currently a Justice of the Supreme Court of Israel. In April 2007 he was appointed acting Supreme Court Justice for one year prior to his official appointment. Previously, Justice Vogelman had been serving as a Tel Aviv District Court judge since 2000. Prior to that Uzi Vogelman started working in the State Prosecutor's criminal department in 1982, then moved to the High Court's petitions department, where he became director in 1995. The Supreme Court has jurisdiction to hear criminal and civil appeals from judgments of ... Read More >

Mr. Hein is a German national who has practiced as a lawyer with the UNHCR in Central America, Asia, Europe and their headquarters for 12 years. In 1990 he founded and has since continued as Head of the Italian Council for Refugees. He served for eight years on the Executive Committee of ECRE. He has taught at the Universities of Rome, Naples and Madrid.

Daisuke Sugimoto is the Secretariat for the Japan Lawyers' Network for Refugees (JLNR), a volunteer organization that assists asylum seekers with refugee status determination procedures.

Ms. Suzuki is currently a Junior Partner in the Izumibashi law office in Tokyo, Japan. She received her LLM from the University of Virginia in 2004, and has been a committee member since 2001 on the Japan Lawyer's Network for Refugees.

Mr. Shogo Watanabe is a Partner at Izumibashi Law Office in Tokyo, Japan and is Chairperson of the Japanese Federation of Bar Association's Committee for Research on Refugee Issues.

Dr. Osamu Arakaki holds a Ph.D in Law from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He is Associate Professor at Shigakukan University in Japan and recently was a Visiting Fellow in the Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School. Dr. Arakaki's previous experience includes serving as the Associate Specialist for the Japan International Cooperation Agency and as an Associate Legal Officer for the Office of the UNHCR.

Judge Kim began his judgeship in 1998 and currently hears criminal cases as a presiding judge at the Suncheon branch of the Kwangju district court in the Republic of Korea. He graduated from Seoul National University Law College in 1993 and studied international refugee law as a visiting scholar at the University of Michigan Law School during the 2002-2003 academic year. He is the author of the first judicial decision in Korea that considered merits of refugee application in 2002. His article "The refugee definition in Geneva Conve... Read More >

Dr. Maarten den Heijer is an Assistant Professor of International Law at the University of Amsterdam. Previously he has been a legislative lawyer at the Dutch Ministry of Home Affairs and he obtained his PhD at the Leiden Institute of Immigration Law. His recent publications include ‘Europe Beyond its Borders: Refugee and Human Rights Protection in Extraterritorial Immigration Control’ (2010), and ‘The Marine I Case: a Comment’ in the International Journal of Refugee Law (2010 with K. Wouters).

Mr. Spijkerboer is Professor of Migration Law at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. His publications include Vluchtelingenrecht (with Ben Vermeulen, 1995, 1997, 1999), Gender and Refugee Status (2000), and Het hoger beroep in Vreemdelingenzaken (2002). He is a member of the editorial board of Rechtspraak Vreemdelingenrecht, Jurisprudentie Vreemdelingenrecht, and the European Journal of Migration and Law, and also a member of the Odysseus network for legal studies on immigration and asylum law in Europe.

Adrienne Anderson holds an LLM from the University of Michigan Law School, where she was a Michigan Grotius Fellow. Previously she was a Legal Associate at the New Zealand Refugee Status Appeals Authority. She holds a BA/LLB (Hons) from the University of Auckland.

Rodger Haines QC is a barrister in private practice and also lecturer in Immigration and Refugee Law at the Faculty of Law, the University of Auckland, New Zealand. He has co-taught papers in Comparative Asylum Law with Professor James C Hathaway at the University of Michigan Law School, Ann Arbour. He was one of the three original appointees to the New Zealand Refugee Status Appeals Authority when it was set up in 1991 and was appointed Deputy Chairperson from 1994, a position he held until the Authority was disestablished in Novembe... Read More >

Øyen holds a degree in law from the University of Bergen. He specialized in human rights law and refugee law at the University of Oslo. Øyen has worked in the Ministry of Justice and in the Immigration Appeals Board.

Øystein Sehl is a Legal Adviser at the Norwegian Immigration Appeals Board (Utlendingsnemnda).

Tom Syring, an ASIL (American Society of International Law) member and Co-Chair of the ASIL International Refugee Law Interest Group, currently serves at the Norwegian Immigration Appeals Board. He has previously taught at the University of Oslo and at Boston University as a Lecturer in International Law and Visiting Fulbright Scholar.

Judge Jacek Chlebny is President of the Lódz Branch of the Supreme Administrative Court in Poland. His responsibilities in this role include administrative matters, especially cases regarding aliens, refugees, taxes and custom duties. Prior to this, from 1985-1993, he served as a judge on various courts in Poland with responsibility in civil matters.

Ms. Aneta Zak was appointed by the President of the Supreme Administrative Court in Poland to serve in the position of “Referendar” (justice clerk) at the Regional Administrative Court in Warsaw in 2008. She is also acting as the legal assistant to the president of the court, judge of the Supreme Administrative Court, Jacek Chlebny. Previously, Ms. Zak was closely and actively involved in the organization of meetings and seminars dedicated to asylum issues, organized in 2007-2009 for European asylum law judges by the Regiona... Read More >

Mr. Andriescu is a Judge for the Târgu Mures Courthouse. Previously he was at the National Institute for Magistrates. Vlad holds a LL.M from the Bucuresti University Law School, and a LL.B from the Law School of “A. I. Cuza” University.

Mr. Florin Dascalescu is a Romanian lawyer specializing in International and European Law, currently working for an international law firm in Brussels. He earned his first Master's Degree in International Law at the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University in Romania, and his second Master's in European Law at the Free University of Brussels (ULB), Institute of European Studies. Mr. Dascalescu was a teaching assistant at the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University and has published several articles on Human Rights in the leading Romanian law journals. D... Read More >

Ms. de la Hunt is currently working as a Legal Adviser to the Minister of Home Affairs, on leave from the University of Cape Town, where she is Director of the Legal Aid Clinic, and an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law. At the University of Cape Town she teaches refugee and immigration law to undergraduate and postgraduate law students, and supervises and conducts research in refugee law. She is a member of the National Consortium on Refugee Affairs.

Advocate Jacob van Garderen is the national project coordinator of Lawyers for Human Rights' Refugee Rights Project and has been actively involved in South African refugee law since 1998. Jacob holds the BCom and LLB degrees from the University of Pretoria and he is a practicing advocate of the High Court of South Africa.

Doctorate in Law and MA in European Union law from the University Carlos III of Madrid, where he was also lecturer in International Law from 1992 to 2004. Former Ramon y Cajal researcher at the Ministry of the Presidency of the Spanish Government from 2004 to 2008, Senior Fellow at FRIDE (2004-2006) and Director of the Conflict Prevention and Resolution Programme at the Toledo International Centre for Peace, CITpax (2006-2008). Since 2008, he has been a research fellow with the EU Institute for Security Studies, dealing with the EU con... Read More >

José Luis Terrero holds a Bachelor of Laws and is currently a PhD candidate. He has been both a Magistrate and a Specialist Magistrate in Administrative Law before his current position serving on the Spanish Special National Court (Administrative Chamber). In addition he has acted as a Legal Advisor to the Studies and Reports Committee of the Spanish General Council of the Judiciary, and served as Associate-Professor at the Universities Complutense of Madrid and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Lecturer at the Spanish and French Judic... Read More >

Simon Andersson is a lawyer currently representing asylum-seekers who is also teaching and completing a Doctorate at the Stockholm University Department of Law. His current research aims to bring clarity to the concept of reasonable suspicion by determining, in the first place, what it really means, and by subsequently formulating the requirements for typical cases in different crime categories that should be satisfied if the standard of evidence 'reasonable suspicion' is to be met.

Dr. Annika Lagerqvist Veloz Roca is a Docent Lecturer and Doctor of Laws and Associate Professor in Public Law at the Stockholm University Department of Law, Juridicum. She teaches constitutional law, law of public administration, and migration law.

Born in Rome in 1974, Francesco Maiani holds a Degree in Law (University of Rome La Sapienza), an LL.M. in European and International Economic Law (Universities of Geneva and Lausanne), and a PhD in Law (Universities of Lausanne and Milano Statale). Formerly a Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute of Florence (2007-2008), he is Assistant Professor at the Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration (Lausanne), where he teaches Constitutional Law, Fundamental Rights and Public Policy. In March 2011 he was appointed me... Read More >

Born July 4, 1954. Originally from Isérables (VS). Law degree from the University of Lausanne in 1978. 1978/1979 legal secretary at the Office of Population Control and Aliens Police of the canton of Vaud. 1979-1983, a lawyer in the Department of appeal of the Federal Department of Justice and Police. 1983-1992 Deputy Director of Monitoring the inhabitant of the canton of Geneva, Head of Division of aliens. 1992-2006 Presi... Read More >

Mr. Kirisci is professor of Political Science and International Relations at Bogazici University, Istanbul. He holds a Jean Monnet chair in European Integration and is also the director of the Center for European Studies at the University. He has previously taught at Universities in Britain, Switzerland and the United States. His most recent book is Turkey In World Politics: An Emerging Multi-Regional Power (co-edited with B. Rubin) (Lynne Reinner, Boulder, 2001).

Mr. Tarhanli teaches public international law, human rights law and humanitarian law, law of treaties, and refugee law at Istanbul Bilgi University. He has been actively involved in training programs on refugee law in cooperation with the UNHCR local office and related governmental agencies in Turkey. Mr. Tarhanli has been also an individual member of the Human Rights Council of the Prime Ministry of Turkey for two years. He is a member of the Istanbul Bar Association, American Society of International Law, Helsinki Citizens' Assembly, ... Read More >

Dr. Tokuzlu, LL.M. (Lund); LL.M. (Marmara), is an Assistant Professor teaching refugee law, constitutional law and human rights law at Istanbul Bilgi University. He has been among the resource persons of the UNHCR B.O. Ankara, the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Justice. He is the coordinator of the Refugee Law Working Group at Istanbul Bilgi University Human Rights Law Research Centre.

Dr David James Cantor ( BA Hons (Cantab.), MSc Dist. (London, SOAS), PhD (Essex) is a lecturer in International Human Rights Law at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies. He conducts research on the practical protection of refugees and also carried out in-depth fieldwork on displacement and armed conflict in Colombia. David is the director of a UNHCR seminar series on 'International Refugee Law'.

Geoff Gilbert is a Professor of Law in the School of Law and Human Rights Centre at the University of Essex. He is Director of the LLM in International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law. He has been Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Refugee Law since 2002. He is author of ‘Current Issues in the Application of the Exclusion Clauses’ in Feller, Türk and Nicholson, Refugee Protection in International Law (2003), part of UNHCR’s Global Consultations on the 50th Anniversary of the 1951 Convention. He is c... Read More >

Catriona Jarvis is a solicitor by training who has an LLM in International Legal Studies, Refugee and Human Rights Law and an MA in Creative Writing. She is also a qualified teacher and holds a Certificate de Langue Française Degree Superieur from the Sorbonne, Paris. She now has 18 years judicial experience. For the last seven years Catriona has been a Senior Immigration Judge at what is now the Upper Tribunal of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber. She has been deeply involved in judicial training over the years both as a former... Read More >

Dr. Anker is a Clinical Professor of Law and the Director of the Harvard Law School Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program. She is the author of the leading treatise, Law of Asylum in the United States, and has drafted ground-breaking guidelines and amicus curiae briefs. Much of her work has focused on gender and gender violence as a basis for asylum, and she is currently involved in questions of asylum eligibility and trafficking, disability status, religious beliefs and family membership. She speaks regularly at conferences a... Read More >

Ms. Ardalan is a Clinical and Advocacy Fellow at the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program. She previously served as the Equal Justice America fellow at The Opportunity Agenda and as a litigation associate at Dewey Ballantine LLP. She also clerked for the Honorable Michael A. Chagares of Third Circuit Court of Appeals and the Honorable Raymond J. Dearie, Chief District Judge for the Eastern District of New York. She holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School and a B.A. in History and International Studies from Yale Coll... Read More >