Ruben Wissing
PhD
Visiting Research Fellow
Ruben is a postdoctoral researcher at the Migration Law Research Group (MigrLaw) of Ghent University, Belgium, affiliated with both the Human Rights Centre (HRC) and the Centre for the Social Study of Migration and Refugees (CESSMIR). He is also connected to the Refugee Law Initiative (RLI) at the University of London. In 2022, he completed his PhD, focusing on refugee protection in Morocco through a multidisciplinary lens.
Ruben's research explores the legal, policy, and practical applications of core principles in the international refugee protection regime – such as non-refoulement, solidarity, asylum and human rights. His work emphasizes inter-state and regional dynamics across Europe and Africa, alongside the lived experiences of migrants.
His scholarship lies at the intersection of doctrinal refugee and asylum law, human rights analysis, socio-legal research, and critical theoretical perspectives. In addition to his research, Ruben serves as a teaching assistant in Law and Society and Global Discourse and Narratives of Crime.
Ruben holds a degree in Law from Leuven and Madrid, and a Bachelor's in Philosophy. He practiced as a migration and asylum lawyer and held roles as a legal officer and policy coordinator in various Belgian non-profits. He also worked as an independent consultant for European NGOs and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). Notably, Ruben co-founded NANSEN, the Belgian Refugee Council.