Ahmad Jaber

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.

Asylum Aid

Asylum Aid has been representing refugees through the UK asylum process for thirty years as well as advocating on behalf of asylum seekers for a better, fairer process in the UK. We are now part of the Helen Bamber group, a charity that specialises in providing care and support for torture survivors.

Asylum Aid has had a specialist focus on Statelessness for the past fifteen years and campaigned alongside ENS for the UK Statelessness process to be created. We have continued to represent statelessness applicants through this process and hope to campaign for legal aid funding in the future.

Asylum Aid website

Benedikt Buechel

Before starting a Ph.D. in Political Theory at the University of Edinburgh, I took an M.A. in International Studies at Seoul National University, and a B.A. in Philosophy and Business Studies at the University of Mannheim. In 2012, I was an exchange student at the Kyoto University of Foreign Studies. Since 2019, I've been a co-chair of the “Normative Theory of Immigration Working Group” which is an international collective of scholars working at the intersections of migration studies, policy studies, and political theory. Moreover,

Benedikt Buechel website

Bhutanese Welfare Association in UK (BWA)

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. 

Bhutanese Welfare Association in UK (BWA) website

British Rohingya Community UK

The Bradford Rohingya community was created in 2008 and later became the British Rohingya Community. We are based in Bradford in the UK and our team consists of members from the Rohingya population that have come to the UK through the UNCHR and Home office Gateway Protection UK. We campaign to ensure members of the Rohingya community in Burma have their human rights realised and are able to live equally and without fear. Our team is also dedicated to raising awareness and increasing media attention towards the plight of the Rohingya in Burma. 

British Rohingya Community UK website

Cecilia Manzotti

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.

Dr Eleanor Cotterill

I am a Human Geographer based in the School of Geography and Planning at Cardiff University. Working directly with stateless individuals, my research aims to understand everyday experiences of statelessness; thinking beyond the status as a legal conundrum and conceptualising statelessness as a complex political, social, and cultural status rooted in the geographical everyday. My research reveals the routine social injustices stateless communities encounter, including access to legal services, healthcare and education, the consequences of these injustices (mental health) and how individuals endure this situation in the UK.

I am also interested in the design and practice of creative research methods to conduct ethnographic research, exploring how creative, participatory research methodologies can be ethically utilised with vulnerable populations. My current research utilises and examines scrapbooking as a form of slow elicitation with stateless individuals.

Dr Eleanor Cotterill website

Jesuit Refugee Service UK

JRS UK provides practical and social support to destitute, appeal rights exhausted refugees, supports immigration detainees and provides advocacy and policy work. In January 2019 we set up the legal project providing free specialist immigration legal advice and representation to those registered with our day centre. Our legal project currently has two caseworkers registered at OISC level 3. Most of the casework relates to further submissions on asylum claims or, where appropriate non-asylum immigration applications. 

Jesuit Refugee Service UK website

JustRight Scotland

JustRight Scotland is a leading social justice organisation founded by human rights lawyers in Scotland. It uses the law to defend and extend people’s rights by providing direct legal advice to people who would otherwise struggle to access justice.  JRS operates 4 national centres of legal excellence, which provide the only specialist legal advice in these areas across Scotland: (i) the Scottish Refugee & Migrant Centre; (ii) the Scottish Women's Rights Centre; (iii) the Scottish Anti-Trafficking & Exploitation Centre; and (iv) the Scottish Just Law Centre.  Through these centres, it designs social justice collaborations which deliver legal advice in the areas of immigration, gender-based violence, anti-trafficking, and disability and trans discrimination.

JustRight Scotland website

Liverpool University Law Clinic

The Liverpool Law Clinic is part of the School of Law and Social Justice, University of Liverpool. The Clinic provides a free legal service. Third year law students work on immigration and asylum cases, including the cases of stateless people, under the extremely close supervision of qualified lawyers who are specialists in the field. Staff at the Law Clinic started this work in 2013 and now contribute to policy initiatives at national and international level.

Liverpool University Law Clinic website