Our members

Since 1991, Accem has worked to improve the living conditions of people in vulnerable situations, defending their human rights and ensuring equal opportunities regardless of race, creed, religion, gender or opinions. Accem works in 12 regions in Spain and provides specialized integral assistance and counselling to refugees, stateless persons, migrants and other groups at risk of social exclusion in Spain, towards the achievement of their full social integration. Accem develops programs around the field of reception, direct assistance, legal counselling, training and labour insertion.

Aditus Foundation was established with a view to monitor, act and report on access to fundamental human rights by individuals and groups. Aditus Foundation was founded on the principles of the universality, interdependence and indivisibility of all fundamental human rights, and we strive to promote their understanding and application. As a generic human rights NGO, we work constantly to adopt a broad perspective for human rights in Malta, identifying themes such as non-discrimination and access to effective remedies. We also work towards highlighting the regional and international implications of human rights. Our main activities include the identification of priority areas, formulating advocacy strategies and working towards improvement in legal and administrative standards. We focus primarily on the Government of Malta, but also address the EU institutions, the UN, the Council of Europe and other relevant agencies. We remain in constant communication and cooperation with governmental, intergovernmental and non-governmental entities to maintain a comprehensive approach to our activities.

Ahmad Jaber, alias Ahmad Benswait, is a stateless researcher in the United Kingdom. He is originally from a minority indigenous to the lands of Kuwait but excluded from the right to Kuwaiti nationality since the country’s independence from Britain. Benswait’s research is informed by his lived experiences of statelessness, including being arbitrarily classed ‘illegal (Bidoon) resident’ in what has always been his homeland, the deprivation of basic human rights and forced migration.

ASKV is an Amsterdam-based organisation providing legal assistance and social support to rejected asylum seekers in the Netherlands. Over the past thirty years, ASKV has supported undocumented migrants with a refugee background by providing shelter, legal and social assistance, daytime activities, and vocational training. Within the organisation there is a dedicated focus on direct assistance to stateless persons and we work on structural improvements in their situation including through strategic litigation, research and awareness campaigns. ASKV is a vocal advocate for refugee and stateless rights, both locally and nationally and engages in direct policy advocacy for durable improvements in Dutch policy. ASKV’s multifaceted approach to assistance and support for undocumented (stateless) refugees ultimately aims to secure their right to residence in the Netherlands and end their precarious and marginalised existence.

Barbara von Rütte is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the Max-Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity. Prior to this she has completed her PhD at the University of Bern within the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research NCCR - on the move. Her doctoral and postdoctoral research focuses on the regulation of nationality in international law, in particular the right to nationality. Her broader research interests include questions relating to citizenship law and theory as well as statelessness, Swiss nationality law, legal identity, and the administrative detention of migrants both from a constitutional law as well as a human rights perspective. Since 2020 she is a member of the Swiss Federal Commission on Migration and serves as a book review editor for the Statelessness and Citizenship review. Until 2019 she also served as a consultant for the Council of Europe on the committee of experts on administrative detention of migrants (CJ-DAM).

The Bhutanese Welfare Association (BWA) is a non-profit organisation established on 27th July 2011. It was established by a group of Bhutanese people within the UK to bring all Bhutanese together to nurture, facilitate, empower and promote Bhutan’s culture, and to aid the population in the development of the skills that are essential for establishing a new life in the United Kingdom. The mission of BWA is to ensure the development of support services that will enable the Bhutanese people to improve their standard of living and increase their self-worth, independence, and autonomy.
BWA’s methods for facilitating the growth of Bhutanese culture, social integration and personal development of individuals includes various activities, programs and guidance. It is an invaluable resource for all Bhutanese to discover their strength and potential to thrive at the start of a new life in a new country, by successfully adjusting to English culture while also retaining their own traditions. 

Cecilia Manzotti is a PhD researcher at the School of Law, Politics and Sociology of the University of Sussex. Her research focuses on the determination of the nationality status of asylum seekers and refugees, including their possible statelessness, in Europe. Previously, she worked in refugee status determination, first as a legal advisor with Africa and Middle Refugee Assistance (AMERA) in Cairo, and later as a decision-maker with UNHCR in Egypt, Turkey and Italy. Cecilia also worked in wider refugee protection, and more recently served as a consultant with UNHCR in Guinea, focusing on statelessness. Moreover, she conducted research on migrant smuggling and trafficking in persons with UNODC and contributed to UNODC publications on these topics.

The Civil Rights Project Sisak (CRP Sisak) is a non-governmental, apolitical, non-profit, humantitarian organisation that works in Croatia. The goal of the organisation is providing humanitarian aid to refugees, returnees, IDPs, socially vulnerable persons, as well as the promotion and protection of human rights and values of all citizens regarding the development and strengthening of democracy and humanism, protection and affirmation of human, civil and political rights.

Clara Van Thillo is a PhD researcher and teaching assistant in international law at the Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies, KU Leuven. She is also a visiting teaching assistant at the University of Hasselt. At the Centre, Clara pursues a PhD on the role that UNHCR plays in the development of the international legal framework on statelessness under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Jan Wouters. 
Prior to joining the Centre, she worked as an intern at the General Representative of the Government of Flanders to the United Nations in Geneva. She holds a Master of Laws degree, which she obtained from KU Leuven in 2021. Her Master’s thesis examined the prosecution of sexual violence against the stateless Rohingya in Myanmar before the International Criminal Court. She also studied one semester at the University of Barcelona in 2019.

Erika Kalantzi past and current roles include Attorney-at-Law at the High Court of Greece 1990-1996: legal counselor at the Greek Council for Refugees 1998-3/2001: participation – representing UNHCR’s office in Athens - to second instance committee for the regularization of illegal migrants in Greece. 2000-2008: participation to second instance committees for the examination of submissions filed by rejected asylum seekers. 1998 till 2015: editing of the Yearbook of Refugee and Aliens Law (issued by the Publisher Ant. N. Sakkoulas in Greece).