Janna Wessels

Janna Wessels is an Associate Professor at the Amsterdam Centre for Migration and Refugee Law, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, specializing in the strategic use of human rights frameworks within migration governance and refugee law.

Her research critically examines how states instrumentalize human rights discourse to advance migration control objectives, with particular focus on European Court of Human Rights jurisprudence and gender/queer dimensions in refugee protection. This work integrates migration law, human rights theory, and critical legal perspectives to challenge conventional state narratives.

Dr. Wessels leads the NWO Veni project 'Countering human rights from within' (2022-2026) and the DFG-funded 'Who is Empowered by Strasbourg?' project (2022-2026), while previously directing the Mercator Foundation's REMAP project (2018-2021) and contributing to Horizon 2020's PROTECT initiative (2020-2023) on the UN Migration Compact.

Her scientific recognition includes:

• NWO Veni Grant

She serves as head of the 'Who is Empowered by Strasbourg?' project within the MeDiMi research group and has authored two seminal monographs: 'The Concealment Controversy' (Cambridge University Press, 2021) analyzing sexual orientation in refugee claims, and a co-authored study on human rights challenges to European migration policy (Hart and Nomos, 2022).