Home
Search
  • people

Bio

Janna Wessels is Assistant Professor of Migration Law at the Amsterdam Center for Migration and Refugee Law, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Previously, she was Lecturer and Postdoctoral Researcher at the Chair of Public Law and European Law at Justus Liebig University Giessen. Janna is particularly interested in feminist/queer theory as well as critical legal theory approaches to human rights and migration law and policy. Her current research projects include the Mercator Foundation funded project ‘Human Rights challenges to European Migration Policy (REMAP)’ and the Horizon 2020 project PROTECT – The Right to International Protection, exploring the legal implications of the UN Global Compacts on Refugees and Migrants. Before joining the University of Giessen, she worked as Research Associate for an Australian Research Council funded international comparative project on Gender-related harms in Refugee law, based at University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Australia and University of British Columbia, Canada. Janna has a PhD in refugee law jointly awarded by the University of Technology Sydney and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her PhD was supported by a Quentin Bryce Law Doctoral Scholarship and comparatively explored judicial decision-making in sexuality-based asylum claims. She holds Master level degrees from the Universities of Münster and Lille (double degree) as well as Oxford (MSc in Forced Migration). Janna is editor for the German Refugee Studies Blog (Fluchtforschungsblog) and co-founder of the Oxford Monitor of Forced Migration (OxMo). 

Publications/recent projects

  • The Concealment Controversy: Sexual Orientation, 'Discretion' Reasoning and the Scope of Refugee Protection (forthcoming CUP).  
  • The boundaries of universality - migrant women and domestic violence before the Strasbourg Court, 37(4) Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights 336-358, 2019.
  • The art of drawing lines: Future behaviour and refugee status, in: Satvinder Juss (ed.) The Research Handbook on International Refugee Law, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 268-280, 2019.