Thomas Spijkerboer

As of 1 October 2024, Thomas Spijkerboer will be research professor of Migration Law at Ghent University, Belgium, where he will lead the research project Global Migration Justice: Beyond conflicting approaches to migration in international human rights law (MIGJUST). Thomas is a member of Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Thomas Spijkerboer (1963) studied law at the Universiteit van Amsterdam (1981-1986). During his studies, he was a volunteer at the Stichting Rechtswinkel Amsterdam (1982-1986), where he specialised in housing law. From 1986 until 1993, he worked at the Advokatenkollektief Zaanstreek, specialising in asylum law. Between 1993 until 2000, he was a lecturer in migration law at the Katholieke (now Radboud) Universiteit Nijmegen, where he defended his PhD Gender and Refugee Status in 1999. From 2000 until 2024, he was professor of Migration Law at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. In 2017-2020, he was Raoul Wallenberg professor of international human rights and humanitarian law at Lund University (Sweden), in 2020-2021 International Franqui professor at Ghent University (Belgium), and in September-December 2022 visiting researcher at the Institut de recherche en droit international et européen de la Sorbonne in Paris (France).