Bio
Professor Vincent Chetail is Professor of International Law and Director of the Global Migration Centre at the Geneva Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. He held research positions at Harvard Law School, King’s College London and European University Institute, and has taught at various other universities, such as Sciences Po Paris, Queen Mary University, Queen’s University of Belfast or Université libre de Bruxelles.
An internationally recognized authority on migration, displacement and international law, Prof Chetail regularly serves as a consultant and advisor to governments, NGOs and international organizations (including AU, EU, OAS, UNITAR, UNHCR, IOM, WHO). As an independent expert, he has been notably involved in the drafting of several international instruments, such as the African Union Protocol on the Free Movement of Persons, and has authored the first report of the WHO documenting national migration policies in times of Covid-19.
His work is frequently referred to by the media, governments, courts and the United Nations. He was awarded 20 research grants from different funding agencies and he has published over 20 books and 70 articles on different topical issues related to migration, refugee protection, internal displacement, human rights and humanitarian law.
Professor Chetail is General Editor of two book series Theory and Practice of Public International Law (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden/Boston) and Organisation internationale et relations internationales (Bruylant, Brussels), as well as Emeritus Editor-in-Chief of the Refugee Survey Quarterly (Oxford University Press) and a member of several editorial boards (including Cambridge Asylum and Migration Studies; International Journal of Migration and Border Studies).
Most of his papers are available on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN).
Selected Publications
- The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration: A Commentary (editor), Oxford: Oxford University Press, Oxford Commentaries on International Law, forthcoming: 2025.
- Elgar Concise Encyclopedia of Migration and Asylum Law (editor), Edward Elgar Publishing, forthcoming: 2025.
- ‘Demystifying Sovereignty: Totem and Taboo of Migration Control in International Law’, American Journal of International Law (unbound), 2024, 193-197.
- ‘The politics of soft law: progress and pitfall of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration’. Frontiers in Human Dynamics, 2023.
- ‘Moving Towards an Integrated Approach of Refugee Law and Human Rights Law’, in: C. Costello, M. Foster & J. McAdam (eds), The Oxford Handbook of International Refugee Law, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021, 202-220.
- International Migration Law, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019.
- ‘Sovereignty and Migration in the Doctrine of the Law of Nations: An Intellectual History of Hospitality from Vitoria to Vattel’, European Journal of International Law, 27(4), 2016, 901-922.
- ‘Is There Any Blood on My Hands? Deportation as a Crime of International Law’, Leiden Journal of International Law, 2016, No. 29, 917-943.
- ‘Looking Beyond the Rhetoric of the Refugee Crisis: The Failed Reform of the Common
- 'European Asylum System’, European Journal of Human Rights, 5, 2016, 584-601.
- ‘Armed Conflict and Forced Migration: A Systemic Approach to International Humanitarian Law, Refugee Law and Human Rights Law’, in A. Clapham & P. Gaeta (eds), The Oxford Handbook of International Law in Armed Conflict, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014, 700-734.
- ‘Are Refugee Rights Human Rights? Some Unorthodox Questioning on the Relations between International Refugee Law and International Human Rights Law’, in: R. Rubio Marin (ed.), Migrations and Human Rights, Collected Courses of the Academy of European Law, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014, 19–72