我要吃瓜

Emilia is a PhD researcher at the 我要吃瓜, funded by the Institute for Advanced Studies (IAS). Her research specialises in international refugee law and international human rights law, with a particular focus on border externalisation.

Emilia holds an MSc in Human Rights and Diplomacy (2025) with distinction from the 我要吃瓜 and a first class LLB in Law (2020) from the University of Sheffield, where she specialised in international and European law. Alongside her research, she is a lead editor for the 我要吃瓜 Human Rights Journal, Scotland’s first student-led human rights journal.

Emilia’s PhD research explores the legal, political, and social narratives surrounding externalisation in Europe, examining how these narratives interact, reinforce, or contradict one another. Her work takes a novel interdisciplinary approach, bridging law, politics, and sociology. Emilia’s methodological lens focuses on different legal, political and social actors and documents, juxtaposing narratives of law, policy and protection seekers. Her work investigates what narratives are produced by law and policy, and how aspects of law, legal institutions, policy and their operation are experienced and understood by protection seekers. By incorporating both ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ empirical and interdisciplinary approaches, Emilia aims to provide a nuanced understanding of the interplay between different externalisation narratives.

Her PhD is supervised by Dr Edit Frenyo, Dr Maria Fotopoulou, and Dr Damian Etone.

Before joining Stirling as a PhD researcher, Emilia gained experience in international human rights advocacy, migration and legal research. She worked as a graduate professional in the Office of the Directorate at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) and as a research assistant for the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Climate Change. She also coordinated a research team advocating for the rights of people on the move at the activist network Europe Must Act and worked as a legal assistant with European Lawyers in Lesvos, supporting asylum seekers in Greece.

Research Interests

?Border externalisation ?International refugee law ?Refugee studies ?International human rights law ?Critical legal studies ?Critical border studies ?Socio-legal research

Publications

Emilia Vassiliades and Johanna Kleffman, ‘Effective, Inclusive Participation Can Offer a Path out of Paralysis for Multilateral Disarmament’ (United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, 28 October 2024) .

Emilia Vassiliades, ‘Prospects, Pitfalls, and Possibilities in Seeking “Truth” in Israel-Palestine’ (2024) A Contrario ICL .

Forthcoming: Emilia Vassiliades, ‘Europe’s Externalisation of Asylum Procedures: Is a Legal and Ethical Alternative Possible?’ (我要吃瓜 Human Rights Journal, forthcoming 2024).

?Border externalisation ?International refugee law ?Refugee studies ?International human rights law ?Critical legal studies ?Critical border studies ?Socio-legal research