Event

Event Overview

This is a hybrid event. Please register here to attend virtually on Zoom. Lunch will be provided for in-person attendees.

The last three months have been marked by consequential events involving immigration and deportation law. Some of these included the executive order on birthright citizenship, forceful deportation practices, and the use of deportation as a tool for promoting non-immigration policies. These events raise important legal questions such as whether countries have unlimited ability to deport non-citizens as a function of the precept of state sovereignty. While states exercise a great deal of latitude in shaping immigration law and policy, their powers are also not unconstrained. State prerogatives are generally limited by rule of law, constitutional rights, as well as customary international law and treaty norms connected with expulsion of non-citizens and human rights.

Join us for an event that brings together a panel of authors of a prospective book on comparative migration law on deportation to explore the experience of deportation law and practice at an international level. Moderated by Professor Gerald Neuman, members of the panel, composed of scholars and practitioners from Australia, China, and France and an upcoming judge of European Court of Human Rights, will share their thoughts and findings in the area.

Panelists

Sanzhuan (Sandra) Guo (PhD), a Visiting Fellow at Harvard Law School Human Rights Program, is an Associate Professor from Flinders University, Australia. She is an accredited immigration law specialist in Australia and the Rapporteur of the International Law Association (ILA) Committee on International Migration and International Law. She is a qualified lawyer in China, USA and Australia. She was the Co-Convener of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (ASSA) Workshop project on ‘A Critical Lens on Mass Deportation of Non-citizens: Law, Crimes and Technology’ (2024).

Marinella Marmo (PhD) is a Professor of Criminology at Flinders University Australia. She is a leading scholar on deportation, human mobility and modern slavery. Her research has been cited by academics and senior policymakers worldwide. She is a Chief Investigator of Australian Research Council’s Discovery Project on Criminal Deportation (2021-2026) and Co-Convener of the ASSA Workshop project on ‘A Critical Lens on Mass Deportation of Non-citizens: Law, Crimes and Technology’ (2024).

Thibaut Fleury Graff (PhD) is a Professor of International Law at Paris Panthéon-Assas University (France). He is also an international expert for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the Co-Chair of the ILA Committee on International Migration & International Law and of the RefWar Project (ANR 2019-2024).

Vasilka Sancin (PhD), a professor and the head of Department of International Law of the University of Ljubljana, will start her judgeship with the European Court of Human Rights in May 2025. She served (2019-2022) as a Member and Vice Chair of the Human Rights Committee, the treaty body of ICCPR. She is the Co-Chair of ILA Committee on International Migration and International Law.

Professor Gerald L. Neuman (moderator) is the Director of the School’s Human Rights Program, and the J. Sinclair Armstrong Professor of International, Foreign, and Comparative Law at HLS. Neuman teaches courses in international human rights law, immigration and nationality law, and U.S. constitutional law. From 2011 to 2014, he served as a Member of the UN Human Rights Committee. Neuman holds a JD from HLS and a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

This event is organized by the Human Rights Program and cosponsored by the Program on Law and Society in the Muslim World and the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights.