Prof. dr. Thomas Spijkerboer
- Contact Information
- Curriculum vitae
- Bibliografie
Biografie
Thomas Spijkerboer (1963) is research professor of Migration Law at Ghent University, Belgium, where he leads the research project Global Migration Justice: Beyond conflicting approaches to migration in international human rights law (MIGJUST). Thomas is a member of Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Thomas studied law at the Universiteit van Amsterdam (1981-1986). During his studies, he was a volunteer at the Stichting Rechtswinkel Amsterdam (1982-1986), where he specialised in housing law. From 1986 until 1993, he worked at the Advokatenkollektief Zaanstreek, specialising in asylum law. Between 1993 until 2000, he was a lecturer in migration law at the Katholieke (now Radboud) Universiteit Nijmegen, where he defended his PhD Gender and Refugee Status in 1999. From 2000 until 2024, he was professor of Migration Law at the Amsterdam Centre of Migration and Refugee Law of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
In 2017-2020, he was Raoul Wallenberg professor of international human rights and humanitarian law at Lund University (Sweden), in 2020-2021 International Franqui professor at Ghent University (Belgium), and in September-December 2022 visiting researcher at the Institut de recherche en droit international et européen de la Sorbonne in Paris (France).
Project
ERC Advanced Grant
Global Migration Justice: Beyond conflicting approaches to migration in international human rights law - MIGJUST
Abstract:
The key hypothesis of the MIGJUST research project is that there is a fundamental conflict in human rights case law on migration between the human rights approach, adopted by the Inter-American Court and Commission of Human Rights and the African Court and Commission of Human and Peoples’ Rights, and on the other hand the sovereignty approach of the European Court of Human Rights. The difference is also at work in the case law of the UN human rights bodies. The two approaches are reflected in, and are in turn reinforced by, political theory on migration justice. In academic studies, the conflict has not been noted because the case law of the European Court of Human Rights is considered to constitute the most developed version in international human rights law. The conflict between the two approaches is problematic because it goes against the international character of international law and hinders international cooperation. MIGJUST will address this problem by (a) analysing the under-studied case law of the Inter-American, African and UN human rights bodies; (b) carrying out a comparative analysis of the European, Inter-American, African and UN case law in the field of migration; (c) relating the varying positions to political theory on migration justice; and (d) developing methodologies to resolve the doctrinal conflict.
Read more: