Columbia University Professor Michael Doyle, along with EUI Professors Liav Orgad and Jean-Thomas Arrighi and colleagues, will be speaking at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence, Italy, discussing the Model International Mobility Convention and the implications of a comprehensive global mobility regime. 

After nearly two years of study and debate convened by the Columbia Global Policy Initiative’s International Migration Project, the Model International Mobility Convention (MIMC) represents a consensus among over 40 academics and policymakers in the fields of migration, human rights, national security, labor economics, and refugee law. The MIMC provides a holistic and rights-based approach to international mobility that integrates the various regimes that seek to govern people on the move. In addition, it fills key gaps in international law that leave many people unprotected by establishing the minimum rights afforded to all people who cross state borders – whether as visitors, tourists, students, workers, residents, entrepreneurs, forced migrants, refugees, victims of trafficking, people caught in countries in crisis and family members – and defines their relationships to their communities of destination, origin, and transit. 

The event is funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (Grant Agreement No 716350).

Speakers

Michael DOYLE, University Professor, Columbia University; Former Director, Columbia Global Policy Initiative. He is affiliated with the School of International and Public Affairs, the Department of Political Science, and the Law School. His research interests include international migration, international relations theory, international law, international peace-building and the United Nations. His most recent book is the Question of Intervention (Yale University Press, 2015). From 2006 to 2013, Doyle was an individual member and the chair of the UN Democracy Fund, a fund established in 2005 by the UN General Assembly to promote grass-roots democratization around the world. Doyle previously served as assistant secretary-general and special adviser for policy planning to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan. In the 1990’s he served as a peacekeeping adviser to High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata and in 2002 prepared a report on migration governance in the UN system for SG Kofi Annan. He has received two career awards from the American Political Science Association for his scholarship and public service and has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy for Political and Social Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. He has an A.B. and Ph.D from Harvard University and an honorary doctor of laws degree from the University of Warwick (UK).

Jean-Thomas ARRIGHI, Research Fellow, National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) On-the-Move, University of Neuchâtel; Adjunct Professor, Universities of Neuchâtel and Lucerne (Switzerland). Jean-Thomas Arrighi joined the ‘Global Citizenship Governance’ research group in September 2018 and is based at the Robert Schuman Centre of the European University Institute. His main task will be to create a global database on naturalisation and conduct comparative research on citizenship law across the world. Jean-Thomas was a research fellow within the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) On-the-Move at the University of Neuchâtel and an adjunct professor in politics at the universities of Neuchâtel and Lucerne (Switzerland). Before moving to Switzerland, he was a research fellow at the GLOBALCIT Observatory of the European University Institute (2012-2015), and a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor (2014). He holds a PhD in Social and Political Sciences from the European University Institute in Florence (2012).

Leiza BRUMAT, Research Fellow, International Relations Analyst, Migration Policy Centre, European University Institute. Leiza Brumat is an International Relations analyst whose areas of interest are the free movement of persons, migration policies, migration policymaking, regional integration and multi-level governance. Before joining the MPC she was a lecturer in International Relations, Regional Integration and International Organizations and a Research Fellow for the National Council of Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET) of Argentina. She was awarded a PhD in Social Sciences by Flacso –Argentina with a thesis on migration policies and the free movement of persons in Mercosur. She was visiting scholar in Università di Bologna and visiting researcher in Universidad Complutense de Madrid. She has been consultant for international organizations. She has participated as presenter, organizer and discussant in several academic events. She has published numerous articles on regional integration, migration policies and the free movement of persons in diverse countries.

Jelena DZANKIC, Coordinator, GLOBALCIT Network, European University Institute. Since September 2015, Jelena Dzankic is the coordinator of the GLOBALCIT network (EUDO Citizenship until 2017). Between 2013 and 2015, Jelena was a Marie Curie Fellow at the EUI. From 2011 to 2013, she did post-doctoral research at the EUI as a Jean Monnet fellow. She is also the expert on Montenegrin citizenship at the EUDO Citizenship Observatory, and has an interest in investor citizenship programs. Jelena holds a PhD in international studies from the University of Cambridge (New Hall College). Her doctoral dissertation analyzed the development of the Montenegrin statehood and nationhood in the period from 1997 to 2007. Before coming to the EUI, Jelena was part of the CITSEE team at the University of Edinburgh and a Teaching Fellow in Comparative Politics at University College London (UCL). Her academic interests fall within the fields of transition of SEE countries, Europeanisation, politics of identity and citizenship. She delivered undergraduate courses at the University of Cambridge, Tsuda College Tokyo, taught postgraduate modules at numerous summer schools (NICLAS Bratislava 2013, GUSEGG Seggau 2014), and guest lectured at several universities in the UK. She has cooperated with a number of organisations and institutions, including Freedom House, the UK House of Commons, and the European Commission.

Leila HADJ-ABDOU, Research Fellow, International Migration Governance, Migration Policy Centre, European University Institute. Leila Hadj Abdou is currently working on a European Research Council (ERC) project exploring understandings of and approaches to international migration by key governance actors in four world regions, including Europe, North America, South America and Asia Pacific. Before joining the Robert Schuman Centre Leila was a Research Fellow at the Research Group “Politics of Inclusion and Exclusion” (INEX), and Associate Lecturer at the Department of Political Sciences of the University of Vienna (Austria). From 2014-15 she was a Research Fellow at the University of Sheffield (UK); and in 2013/14 she was a Research Fellow at the Centre for Transatlantic Relations at the School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS, Johns Hopkins University) in Washington D.C.. She held visiting positions at the University College Dublin (Ireland) and the CNRS (Paris, France). Leila holds a Ph.D. (2013) in Social and Political Sciences from the European University Institute (Italy) (supervised by Rainer Baubock & Donatella della Porta). Leila has published on migration governance, immigration and immigrant integration policies, the regulation and contestation of Muslim practices in Europe, and the populist radical right. Leila has also extensive, practical experience in the field of asylum/migration, having held positions in 2016 and 2017 as a project coordinator for an NGO working with unaccompanied minor asylum seekers, as well as in an educational centre working with adult refugees, and refugee care workers. 

Liav ORGAD, Part-time Professor, ERC Starting Grant - Global Citizenship Law: International Migration and Constitutional Identity. Liav Orgad is the Director of the ‘Global Citizenship Law’ Project at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute (EUI); the Head of the Research Group ‘International Citizenship Law’ at WZB Berlin Social Science Center, and a Recurrent Visiting Professor at Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya, Israel. In recent years, Orgad was a Fellow-in-Residence at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University, a Visiting Professor at Columbia Law School, a Marie Curie Fellow at Freie Universität Berlin, a Fulbright Scholar at NYU Law School, and a Jean-Monnet Fellow at the EUI. He is a Member of the Global Young Academy, where he heads the Working Group ‘Global Migration and Human Rights,’ the author of The Cultural Defense of Nations: A Liberal Theory of Majority Rights (Oxford University Press, 2016), and the recipient of the Eric Stein Prize for ‘best scholarly article’ by the American Society for Comparative Law (2011). His research project funded by an ERC Starting Grant on ‘Global Citizenship Law’ advances the establishment of a new subfield in international law—International Citizenship Law (ICIL)—which would regulate nationality law; it explores the idea of ‘blockchain membership’ and matching algorithm for citizenship, and invites us to challenge our understanding of citizenship in the age of global economy, technology, and mobility.

Anna TRIANDAFYLLIDOU, Professor, Global Governance Programme (GGP), Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (RSCAS), European University Institute. Anna Triandafyllidou is Professor at the Global Governance Programme (GGP) of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (RSCAS), European University Institute. Within the GGP she coordinates the Research Area on  Cultural Pluralism. Before joining the Programme, she was part time professor at the RSCAS (2010-2012).  During the period 2004-2012, she was Senior Fellow at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP) in Athens where she headed a successful migration research team. She has been Visiting Professor at the College of Europe in Bruges since 2002 and she is the Editor-in-Chief of the  Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Studies. Professor Triandafyllidou received her PhD from the European University Institute in 1995 and held teaching and research positions at the University of Surrey (1994-95), the London School of Economics (1995-97), the CNR in Rome (1997-99), the EUI (1999-2004) and the Democritus University of Thrace. She was a Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence at New York University in 2001, and a Colston Fellow at the University of Bristol (2001-2002). She serves as national expert in the OECD Network of International Migration Experts (formerly SOPEMI) and acts as an evaluator of research projects for the European Research Council (Advanced, Starting and Consolidator Grants), the Research Framework Programmes of the European Commission (FP5, FP6, FP7, Horizon), the European Science Foundation, and several national ministries, research agencies and Universities in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Finland, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK. She has also worked as an evaluator for DG Home policies on migrant integration (2016-2018) and has been consulted by the European Parliament on high skill migration policy reform (2016).