Our members

The Unione Italiana Apolidi is a non-profit association in Italy led by stateless or former stateless persons. Its objective is to inform and raise awareness on the issue of statelessness through advocacy, becoming a reference point and a bridge that connect fragmented stateless communities and public institutions.

The University of Strathclyde Law Clinic is a voluntary student run organisation. Its immigration unit works in collaboration with Refugee Survival Trust, Scottish Refugee Council and British Red Cross as part of the Destitute Asylum Seekers Service. The Clinic’s role within this service is to help clients obtain new evidence to submit fresh claims for asylum. We then assist clients to prepare a fresh claim for asylum when they are either no longer able to obtain legal aid or when there is insufficient legal aid to support them with their case. We also advise clients on other immigration application options that may be open to them. The work is carried out by law students supervised by a me (OISC level 2 qualified and non practicing solicitor).

Valeria Cherednichenko holds a Bachelor degree in International law, a Master degree in International Law and English Translation, both from the Institute of International Relations of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, and an LLM in International and European Public Law: Human Rights from Tilburg University (the Netherlands). Areas of research and interest include: human rights and nationality, statelessness in the Middle East and North Africa, statelessness in Ukraine and the Dominican Republic. She is currently obtaining her PhD in Advanced Studies in Human Rights at Charles III University of Madrid, focusing on statelessness determination procedures in Spain. 

Vasa Prava, Bosnia and Herzegovina has since 2004 been protecting the rights of returnees, displaced persons, refugees, asylum seekers, ethnic minority groups, especially the Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian (RAE) communities, and other socially vulnerable individuals. Its main goal is to protect the rights of these beneficiaries by providing free legal aid to allow equal access to justice without discrimination on any grounds. Vasa prava BiH  contributes to increased protection for the RAE minorities, to lessen discrimination, improve access civil rights, access to birth registration and prevention and reduction of statelessness. 

Victoria Reitter is a PhD fellow at the Department of Sociology at the University of Salzburg. She studied International Business Administration in Vienna and Halmstad (Sweden) and Social and Cultural Anthropology in Vienna and worked as a research associate in two projects (on refugees in Vienna and non-deported rejected asylum seekers in Sweden). In her dissertation, she deals with statelessness in Austria and investigates administrative practices in state-authorities with regard to stateless persons.

Roma Youth Organization Walk with us - Phiren Amenca is the first and currently the only active organization in Montenegro engaged with Roma youth. Their members are university and high school students from the Roma community. They are actively engaged in all organisation activities and are using their education and knowledge to fascilitate  the approach to different services and thus, improve the position of the Roma. Their activities besides youth sector are based on the community actions and advocacy in the field of education, employment, legal status, social inclusion, housing. Their office is located in the biggest Roma community in Montenegro, making them well placed to directly address issues for those Roma encountering difficulties in above mentioned areas. This community based approach of work made them a credible organisation among Roma community, which is focused on their needs and advocacy  toward the institutions.

Wout van Doren is a Belgian lawyer specialised in migration, refugee and nationality law, with a particular interest in statelessness. He has concluded research and advocacy activities regarding statelessness in Belgium as a consultant for UNHCR's Regional Representation for Western Europe. He also teaches Human Rights Law at the Faculties of Law at the Universities of Leuven and Hasselt.

Yeşim Mutlu is an independent advocate and researcher based in Turkey. She was awarded her B.A., M.A. and PhD from the Sociology Department in the Middle East Technical University. Her research interests include conflict-induced internal displacement, (arbitrary) revocation of citizenship, statelessness, human rights, gender and security, children's right and secondary trauma. Besides her academic studies, for more than ten years, she has worked, either as a consultant or as a researcher, in research projects conducted by national and international organizations on various subjects, many of focusing on disadvantaged groups. Among  others, in 2015, she was awarded a research grant by Raoul Wallenberg Institute, Turkey and conducted the research on Syrian children's risk of statelessness in Turkey. She was also awarded another research grant by Turkey’s Centre for Prison Studies in 2018, and wrote the report about stateless persons in Turkish prisons. She is currently working for awareness raising about (the risk of) statelessness in Turkey and creating the website haymat-loss.info. 

Zsolt Bobis is a Program Coordinator with the Open Society Justice Initiative. He holds MA degrees in American Studies, English Language and Literature, Teacher Training earned at Eötvös Loránd University, and in Human Rights from Central European University. He worked for a year at the Hungarian Human Rights Foundation’s New York office in the framework of The Hungarian American Enterprise Scholarship Fund's Professional Internship Program before joining the Open Society Justice Initiative, initially as a legal intern working on freedom of information/expression and community empowerment clinics in 2011.