Desmet, Ellen

Ellen Desmet is an Associate Professor of Migration Law at the Faculty of Law and Criminology of Ghent University. She founded and heads the Migration Law Research Group (MigrLaw). Ellen Desmet complemented her law studies (KU Leuven) with a master in Cultures and Development Studies (KU Leuven) and a master in Development Cooperation (Ghent University). She holds a PhD in Law from the KU Leuven (2010) and previously held positions at the Children’s Rights Knowledge Centre, the Law and Development Research Group of the University of Antwerp and the Human Rights Centre of Ghent University.

Her research is situated at the intersection of migration law, human rights and legal anthropology. She teaches migration law and ‘law and society’, and coordinates the migration law component of the Human Rights and Migration Law Clinic. She serves as co-supervisor spokesperson of the Human Rights Research Network (HRRN), steering board member of the Centre for the Social Study of Migration and Refugees (CESSMIR), and chair of NANSEN – the Belgian Refugee Council. She is also the volume editor of Migration Law of the International Encyclopaedia of Laws, and editorial board member of the Flemish Journal of Migration Law.

During her professorial fellowship at UNU-CRIS, Ellen Desmet will primarily work on the legal protection of environmentally displaced persons, in close collaboration with the Nature, Climate and Health Cluster, and with the Migration and Social Policy Cluster.