Marie-Bénédicte Dembour is Professor of Law and Anthropology at the University of Brighton She has also taught at the European University Institute, the Vrije Universiteit Brussels, and the University of Oxford. She has authored and edited numerous previous titles.
With a title as hard hitting as When Humans Become Migrants one would hope the content of the book would be equally as striking, and thankfully it is. Through it, legal anthropologist Marie-Benedicte Dembour challenges our thinking about the position and humanity of migrants, even before opening the book ... Dembours conceptual approach - contrasting the treatment of migrants in the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) with that of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) - provides a unique, highly relevant, and timely contribution to the field of human rights law and migration studies. Rachael Owhin, Border Criminologies This book is highly recommendable for students, academics, and practitioners working on migration and human rights. It is an excellent and crucial addition to the literature and the first book where both regional courts are carefully examined on the issue of migrant protection. This makes the publication a lasting contribution for years to come and a central landmark in the scholarly research on the subject. Diego Acosta Arcarazo, Senior Lecturer in European and Migration Law, University of Bristol, Nordic Journal of Human Rights With a title as hard hitting as When Humans Become Migrants one would hope the content of the book would be equally as striking, and thankfully it is. Through it, legal anthropologist Marie-Benedicte Dembour challenges our thinking about the position and humanity of migrants, even before opening the book. Dembour's conceptual approach - contrasting the treatment of migrants in the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) with that of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) - provides a unique, highly relevant, and timely contribution to the field of human rights law and migration studies. Rachael Owhin, Border Criminologies Dembour's analysis is wide-ranging, covering historical and current developments in a range of areas of concern to migrants and their representatives. It is a work of sympathetic imagination which holds fast to its ideals even when writing against the mainstream. Dr Helena Wray, The Journal of Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Law Dembour offers not only a perspicacious analysis and prudent suggestions, but also raises significant questions such as how the interests of migrants on one hand and of states on the other could be balanced without a bias for either or another, or how to regard the other as one of our own, create an open and inclusive attitude and set it as an institutional imperative. Tea Skrinjaric, Allegra Lab: Anthropology, Law, Art & World In her characteristically original, distinctive and insightful way, Dembour invites us to abandon preconceived ideas and to think differently. This is the role judges need legal scholars to perform if academic commentaries are to nourish judicial decision-making. An intelligent, lucid and courageous book that takes the debate into new territory. Francoise Tulkens, Former Judge and Vice President European- Court of Human Rights