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  4. (B)OrderS: Centre for the Legal Study of Borders, Migration and Displacement
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About us

Our Vision

The (B)OrderS Centre is the first to undertake an interdisciplinary, systematic, and legally grounded exploration of the means and modes of borders and their implications for ordering and othering within and beyond the law, paying particular attention to apparently “borderless” phenomena that seem to defy the logics of differentiation inherent in border-making. The illumination of law’s role, but from a fully interdisciplinary perspective and with a wide reach spatially, conceptually, and methodologically, sets the (B)OrderS Centre apart from similar ventures, which tend to have a mono-disciplinary basis, a specific geographical focus and traditional understanding of borders, or largely disregard the legal dimension. Migration, climate change, the global health crisis, IT/data governance, as well as the legacies of empire require new ways to conceptualise borders, their “world-making” mechanisms and effects, and the place of legal processes therein, which the (B)OrderS Centre investigates.

Directors

Dr Violeta Moreno-Lax

Professor Violeta Moreno-Lax - Founding Director

Professor Violeta Moreno-Lax is Full Professor of Law (on special leave), specialising in international and EU law at the intersection with migration, border violence, and security. She currently holds a prestigious Ramón y Cajal Senior Fellowship grant (2022-27), awarded by the Spanish government to top scientists, that she is implementing at the University of Barcelona. She is the founder of the Immigration Law programme and the inaugural director of the interdisciplinary Centre for the Legal Study of Borders, Migration and Displacement: (B)OrderS. At Queen Mary, she has equally co-founded and served as inaugural co-director of the Centre for European and International Legal Affairs (CEILA) (2014-18). Professor Moreno-Lax is also Visiting Professor at the College of Europe, where she teaches a course on the EU’s Area of Freedom, Security and Justice: Internal and External Aspects; and legal adviser and founding member of de:border | migration justice collective, focusing on strategic litigation in the area of border violence and migration. Professor Moreno-Lax also serves as Co-Chair of The European Law Observatory; as member of the Advisory Board of Equal Rights Beyond Borders; as member of the Steering Committee of the Migration and Law Network; has been Senior Research Associate of the Refugee Law Initiative since 2018; and sits in the Editorial Board of the European Journal of Migration and Law. As a world-leading expert in EU and international refugee and migration law, she regularly consults for UN agencies, the EU institutions, and other organisations worldwide. She has published widely in these areas, including her monograph: Accessing Asylum Europe: Extraterritorial Border Controls and Refugee Rights Under EU Law (Oxford University Press, 2017).

Nicolette Busuttil wearing a green dress

Dr Nicolette Busuttil - Centre Coordinator

Dr Nicolette Busuttil is Centre Co-coordinator of (B)OrderS: Centre for the Legal Study of Borders, Migration and Displacement. She is a Lecturer in Law within the School of Gender, Law, and Media at SOAS where she lectures on and researches the rights of refugees and migrants under international and EU law, with a focus on persons with disabilities. Nicolette specialises in the intersection between international and European Union (EU) law for this cohort, focusing on the implications of the adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities for refugees and other migrants in the EU. Her doctoral research examined the impact of the evolution in disability human rights for migrants with mental healthcare needs facing expulsion from the EU and looked at how existing interpretations of the non-refoulement obligation operate to disable migrants with healthcare needs.

Nicolette’s wider research interests include the impact of inter-state and regional cooperation on the effective implementation of rights in the migration and asylum sphere. She has researched and published on the implementation of the UN Global Compacts for Refugees and for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration for the European international protection framework, as part of the Horizon 2020 PROTECT project. As a former practitioner working with refugees and those in immigration detention in Malta, Nicolette remains involved in initiatives focusing on the implementation of refugee and migration law at the EU’s southern borders and its impact on refugees and other migrants with disabilities.

Nicolette is a Research Affiliate of the Refugee Law Initiative (University of London) and a member of the Immigration Law Practitioners Association (ILPA).

Ellen Allde – Centre Coordinator

Ellen Allde's face and shoulders. She has brown hair, a headband on and there are trees in the background.Ellen Allde is a PhD Candidate in Law at Queen Mary University of London and acts as Centre Coordinator for (B)OrderS: Centre for the Legal Study of Borders, Migration and Displacement. Ellen’s research focuses on the in-accessibility of law for women in European spaces of bordering. Her research addresses the new EU Closed Controlled Access Centres (CCACs) in Greece and the colonial legacies of bordering Europe. Ellen’s research interests relate to the study of (im)mobility and rights, utilising intersectional and decolonial theories. Ellen’s PhD Project, ‘The-exception-to-the-exception-to-the-exception: Situating women within the EU hotspot approach‘, is funded by the Queen Mary University of London Leverhulme Trust Doctoral Scholarship (Queen Mary-LTDS) as part of the Mobile People programme.

Ellen previously completed her LLM in Human Rights Law at Queen Mary and her BA in Law and International Relations at SOAS, University of London. She was called to the Bar of England and Wales with Inner Temple at the Hilary Ceremony 2022. Ellen is a Teaching Fellow in International Refugee Law at Queen Mary. Ellen is also a member of the strategic litigation team of I Have Rights. She is also a Research Affiliate of the Refugee Law Initiative (University of London), and a member of Women in Refugee Law (WiRL) and Immigration Law Practitioners Association (ILPA).

Members

The Centre’s membership includes staff and research students of the School of Law, whose research falls within the ambit of the Centre’s remit. Academics across and beyond Queen Mary University of London are welcome to become members of the Centre.

Staff

Visiting Scholars and External Affiliates

PhD Students

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