
Working Group on Externalisation
Established in 2020, the Externalisation Working Group is the first working group to be created at the RLI. It provides an academic platform for promoting exchange and developing collaborative research on the global effects of externalisation policies on refugees and asylum-seekers. Currently, it consists of experts from Australia, Asia, Africa, the US and Europe.
Key outputs and activities
- The Working Group contributed to the first RLI Declaration on Externalisation and Asylum, recently published by the International Journal of Refugee Law. The Declaration and its accompanying analytical paper are available here.
- Working Group Panel, Chain-Externalisation of EU Migration Management Policies, 6th RLI annual conference, 2022
- Working Group Panel, Externalisation, Responsibility Sharing, and the Global Compact on Refugees, 5th RLI annual conference, 2021
- Working Group Panel, Under-explored Obligations and Accountability Mechanisms in the Externalisation of Asylum Policies, 5th RLI annual conference, 2021
The Externalisation Working Group is convened by Dr Mariana Gkliati. RLI network members who wish to become involved should email the convenors directly.
Current members

Dr Aleksandra Ancite-Jepifánova
Senior Research Fellow, Rule of Law Clinic, Central European University’s Democracy Institute

Katia Bianchini
Research Fellow, Law and Anthropology Department, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology

Professor David James Cantor
Director and Professor of Refugee Protection and Forced Migration Studies

Sreetapa Chakrabarty
Assistant Professor in Political Science, Centre for Distance and Online Education, Rabindra Bharati University

Dr Lynn Hillary LLM
Assistant Professor, Europeanization Constitutional and Administrative Law, University of Amsterdam

Isabella Leroy
PhD Candidate at the Amsterdam Centre for Migration and Refugee Law (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)

Dr Izabella Majcher
Consultant at the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Migration Unit

Dr Elizabeth Mavropoulou
Visiting Lecturer University of Westminster and Programme Manager, Human Rights at Sea

Dr. Annick Pijnenburg
Assistant Professor in International and European Law at Radboud University Nijmegen

Dr. Almamy Sylla
Senior Lecturer at the Université des Lettres et des Sciences Humaines de Bamako (ULSHB), Mali

Silvia Talavera Lodos
PhD student in Human Rights and Global Politics, Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies

Dr Ruben Wissing
Consultant in Asylum and Migration Law and Policy; Teaching Assistant in Law and Society and in Migration Law at Ghent University

Matthew Zagor
Associate Professor at Australian National University, Director of Law Reform and Social Justice (ANU)