Maja Janmyr

Image of Maja Janmyr
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Visiting address Kristian Augusts gate 17 Domus Juridica 8.etg 0164 Oslo
Postal address Postboks 6706 St. Olavs plass 0130 Oslo

Academic interests

  • International refugee law
  • Ethnographic approaches
  • Refugees and other migrants
  • Legal mobilization
  • Refugee camps
  • United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
  • Visual storytelling

Maja Janmyr is a Professor of International Migration Law at the Department of Criminology and Sociology of Law. Focusing on Lebanon and the broader Middle East, her work takes a historical and socio-legal approach to international law, examining in particular how refugees and other migrants understand and engage with legal norms and institutions, and how international refugee law is interpreted and implemented in local contexts.

Janmyr is most well-known for her work on refugee protection in Lebanon, where she has explored how national and local actors, as well as refugees and other migrants, engage with the international refugee law regime. Together with a team of creatives, and based on her research, she recently published the graphic novel Cardboard Camp: Stories of Sudanese Refugees in Lebanon (2023).

Janmyr has previously studied the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ (UNHCR) human rights responsibilities in refugee camps, as well as Norway’s readmission agreements and forced return in the broader context of EU migration policies. In Egypt, she has studied how Nubian activists have mobilized for recognition of indigeneity and for return to their ancestral lands along the Nile, and how they’ve strategically used international law and institutions to do so.

Janmyr has led several large research projects in international refugee law, and currently holds a Starting Grant (2021-2026) from the European Research Council for the project Protection without Ratification? International Refugee Law beyond States Parties to the 1951 Refugee Convention (BEYOND). This research aims to construct a more global perspective on the nature of international refugee law by focusing on the role and practice of states that are not contracting parties to the 1951 Refugee Convention. These non-signatory states are predominantly found in the Middle East and South Asia and have traditionally been seen as 'exceptions' to international refugee law.

Background

Maja Janmyr holds a PhD in International Law from the University of Bergen (2012). In 2018 she became Full Professor of Law at the University of Oslo.

Janmyr has held visiting appointments at the following academic institutions:

  • American University of Beirut, Lebanon
  • Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford, United Kingdom
  • Geneva Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID), Switzerland
  • American University in Cairo, Egypt
  • Swedish Defence University, Sweden
  • Makerere University, Uganda

Janmyr is currently a member of the University of Oslo’s Scholars at Risk committee. In 2023, she was appointed to the OSCE List of Experts for the Human Dimension Mechanism.

Between 2017-2021 Janmyr was an elected member of the Young Academy of Norway.

Janmyr currently serves on the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Refugee Law and regularly reviews research articles for a wide range of journals in international law, Middle East studies, migration studies and refugee studies. She is also a regular independent expert reviewer for international and national funding institutions, including the European Research Council.

Awards

  • Fridtjof Nansen medal of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, 2022
  • University of Oslo's Award for Young Researchers, 2021
  • Chr. Michelsen Prize for outstanding development research, 2018
  • Meltzer Prize for Young Researchers, 2014

Research Grants (selected)

Protection without Ratification? International Refugee Law beyond States Parties to the 1951 Refugee Convention (BEYOND) (2021-2026).

         Funding source: European Research Council Starting Grant.
Budget (Euros): 1 500 000.
Role: Principal investigator.

Global Asylum Governance and European Union's Role (ASILE) (2020-2024).
Funding source: European Commission's Horizon 2020 Programme (H2020).
Budget (Euros): 2 957 951.
Role: Co-investigator (Lead, work package 4).

Refugees and the Arab Middle East (REF-ARAB) (2019-23).
Funding source: Research Council of Norway (FRIPRO).
Budget (Euros): 1 242 520.
Role: Principal investigator.

Political Rights in Precarious Realities; A Socio-Legal Exploration of Syrian Refugees in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan (2015-18).
Funding source: Research Council of Norway (FRIPRO).
Budget (Euros): 410 000.
Role: Principal investigator.

Transnationalism from above and below: Migration management and how migrants manage (MIGMA) (2015-19).
Funding source: Research Council of Norway (VAM).
Budget (Euros): 1 060 000.
Role: Co-investigator.

Migration to Norway: Flows and Regulations (2011-14).
Funding source: Research Council of Norway (VAM).
Budget (Euros): 1 060 000.
Role: Co-investigator.

Protection of Civilians within Refugee Camp Environments: The Lawful Separation of Armed Elements (2008-2012).
Funding source: Research Council of Norway (IMER).
Budget (Euros): 221 000.
Role: Personal PhD grant.

 

Janmyr is on Twitter! Her personal website is here.

Tags: Refugees, International Law, Human Rights, Migration, Social movements, Lebanon, Middle East, Sociology of Law

Selected publications

Peer-reviewed monographs and edited collections

Janmyr, Maja. Feature on "Non-signatory States and the International Refugee Regime" in Forced Migration Review 67 (2021).

Janmyr, Maja and Knudsen, Are. "Dossier on Humanitarianism in Refugee Camps" in 7 Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development 3 (2016).

Janmyr, Maja. Protecting Civilians in Refugee Camps: Unwilling and Unable States, UNHCR and International Responsibility, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers/Brill (2014). 

Peer-reviewed journal articles

Janmyr, Maja and Lysa, Charlotte. "Saudi Arabia and the International Refugee Regime" International Journal of Refugee Law (2023).

Janmyr, Maja and Lysa, Charlotte. "UNHCR’s Expansion to the GCC states: Establishing a UNHCR Presence in Saudi Arabia 1987-1993" Middle East Critique (2023).

Janmyr, Maja. "Ethnographic Approaches and International Refugee Law" Journal of Refugee Studies (2022).

Janmyr, Maja. "Refugee Participation through Representative Committees: UNHCR and the Sudanese Committee in Beirut" Journal of Refugee Studies (2022).

Janmyr, Maja. "Non-signatory States and the International Refugee Regime" Forced Migration Review 67 (2021).

Janmyr, Maja. "The 1951 Refugee Convention and Non-Signatory States: Charting A Research Agenda" International Journal of Refugee Law (2021). 

Janmyr, Maja. "Sudanese refugees and the “Syrian refugee response” in Lebanon: Racialised hierarchies, processes of invisibilisation and resistance" Refugee Survey Quarterly (2021).

Janmyr, Maja and Skribeland, Özlem. "Human Rights References in Norway’s Readmission Agreements: (How) Do They Protect?" Nordic Journal of Human Rights (2020).

Janmyr, Maja and Mourad, Lama. "Modes of Ordering: Labelling, Classification and Categorization in Lebanon's Refugee Response" Journal of Refugee Studies (2018).

Janmyr, Maja. "UNHCR and the Syrian refugee response: negotiating status and registration in Lebanon" International Journal of Human Rights (2017).

Janmyr, Maja. "No Country of Asylum: 'Legitimizing' Lebanon’s Rejection of the 1951 Refugee Convention" 29 International Journal of Refugee Law 3 (2017).

Janmyr, Maja and Knudsen, Are. "Introduction: Hybrid Spaces"Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development 3 (2016).

Janmyr, Maja. "Spaces of Legal Ambiguity: Refugee Camps and Humanitarian Power"Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development 3 (2016).

Janmyr, Maja. "Precarity in Exile: The Legal Status of Syrian Refugees in Lebanon" 35 Refugee Survey Quarterly 4 (2016).

Janmyr, Maja. "Human Rights and Nubian Mobilisation in Egypt: towards recognition of indigeneity" Third World Quarterly (2016).

Janmyr, Maja. "Nubians in Contemporary Egypt: mobilizing return to ancestral lands" 25 Middle East Critique 2 (2016).

Janmyr, Maja. "The Effectiveness of Norway's Readmission Agreements with Iraq and Ethiopia" International Migration (2015).

Janmyr, Maja. "Att återvända till fäderneslandet - hur den nubiska drömmen kan bli en rättighet i det nya Egypten" Babylon: Nordic Journal of Middle East Studies 1-2 (2015). 

Janmyr, Maja. "Norway's Readmission Agreements: Spellbound by European Union Policies or Free Spirits on the International Field?” 16 European Journal of Migration and Law 2 (2014). 

Janmyr, Maja. "Recruiting Internally Displaced Persons into Civil Militias: the Case of Northern Uganda" 32 Nordic Journal of Human Rights 3 (2014). 

Janmyr, Maja. "Attributing Wrongful Conduct of Implementing Partners to UNHCR: International Responsibility and Human Rights Violations in Refugee Camps"Journal of International Humanitarian Legal Studies 1 (2014).

Peer-reviewed book chapters

Janmyr, Maja. "Lebanon and the Establishment of International Refugee Law" in Fakhoury, Tamirace and Chatty, Dawn, Refugee Governance in the Arab World: The International Refugee Regime and Global Politics. Bloomsbury (forthcoming 2024).

Janmyr, Maja. "Refugees, Peacemaking and Durable Solutions to Displacement" in Wanis-St. John A. & MacGinty R., Contemporary Peacemaking: Peace Processes, Peacebuilding and Conflict. Palgrave: Macmillan (2021).

Janmyr, Maja and Stevens, Dallal. "Regional Refugee Regimes: Middle East" in Costello C., Foster M. & McAdam J., Oxford Handbook of International Refugee Law. Oxford University Press (2021).

Janmyr, Maja. "Indigeneity vs Development: Nubian rights mobilisation in Egypt" in Corradi G., De Feyter K., Desmet E. & Vanhees K., Critical indigenous rights studies: New directions in indigenous rights research. Routledge (2018).

Janmyr, Maja. "Military Recruitment of Sudanese Refugee Men in Uganda: a Tale of National Patronage and International Failure" in Buckley-Zistel S. & Krause U., Gender, Violence, Refugees. Berghahn Books (2017). 

Janmyr, Maja. "Advancing UNHCR Accountability through the Law of International Responsibility" in Sandvik K. & Jacobsen K., UNHCR and the Struggle for Accountability: Technology, Law and Results-Based Management. Routledge (2016).

Janmyr, Maja. “Refugees and Peace” in Bailliet C. & Larsen K.M., Promoting Peace through International Law. Oxford University Press (2015).

Janmyr, Maja. “Revisiting the Civilian and Humanitarian Character of Refugee Camps" in Durieux J.F. & Cantor D., Refuge from Inhumanity: war refugees and international humanitarian law. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers (Brill)(2014).

Published Jan. 8, 2018 12:26 PM - Last modified Jan. 17, 2024 12:19 PM

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