Working Group Members

Ana María Diez is a lawyer by training. She is the Co-founder and President of Coalición por Venezuela, a coalition of over a hundred Venezuelan civil society organizations from twenty-three countries and represents Coalición por Venezuela on UNHCR’s Advisory Board of Organizations led by Displaced and Stateless People. Ana Maria is based in Madrid, Spain. 

Bahati Kanyamanza is the Global Partnerships Director at IRAP and an advisor to the US Refugee Advisory Board and Co-founder, CIYOTA. Born in the DR Congo, he became a refugee in Uganda where he lived for 17 years before he was resettled to the US in 2016. He has worked with refugees for over 20 years and was a refugee for 23 years. Bahati is based in Texas, USA.

Baqir Bayani is an independent consultant in strategic coordination, advocacy, and equitable partnerships, with a deep commitment to enabling meaningful refugee participation, amplifying local leadership, and addressing power imbalances through impact networks and coalitions. Baqir, as a consultant for Act for Peace, currently serves on the Secretariat of the international Working Group, which seeks to address a critical gap in international law and policy by affirming the right of refugees and others experiencing forced displacement or statelessness to actively participate in decisions that affect their lives. He also serves as the Global Partnerships and Refugee Participation Lead at Asylum Access, where he advances their global systemic change in the refugee sector by promoting equitable partnerships and centering refugee leadership. In addition, he provides consultancy support to the Asia Pacific Network of Refugees (APNOR) to provide training for iNGOs and government stakeholders on meaningful refugee participation. Baqir is a co-author of In Endless Transit: Contributions & Challenges for Refugee-Led Initiatives in Indonesia and holds an Associate Degree in Business Management from Broward College.

Basma Alawee serves as the Deputy Executive Director at the Community Sponsorship Hub. She was the first refugee advisor on the U.S. government delegation to UNHCR’s Executive Committee. In 2023, she was selected to join the Global Refugee Sponsorship Initiative's advisory board. Basma is based in Florida, USA.

Brian Barbour is Senior Refugee Protection Advisor at Act for Peace and an Affiliate at the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law at the University of New South Wales (UNSW).  Brian’s research engages international and comparative refugee and migration law, particularly in the context of Asia. He is an expert in the institutional setup of government asylum systems, producing leading works on backlog prevention and reduction for UNHCR, and on asylum capacity development for the Kaldor Centre.  His perspective is informed by over 15 years of international legal practice experience, representing asylum claimants in UNHCR and government systems, and engaging with and supporting local communities.  He has recently completed his PhD entitled, A 'Whole-of-Society Approach' to Refugee Protection in Asia.  Act for Peace has mobilized over resources and support since the GRF in 2019 to implement pledges and undertake our work relating to meaningful refugee participation.  This work includes: 2023 Guidelines for Co-Produced Research with Refugees and Other People with Lived Experience of Displacement (translated into 4 languages English, French, Spanish, and Arabic); and two major reports on the contributions and challenges of Refugee-led Initiatives in Bangladesh and Indonesia. 

Danijel Malbasa - based in Australia, is the Deputy Chair of the Forcibly Displaced People Network – Australia’s first LGBTIQ+ refugee network. He also sits on the steering committee of Australia’s National Refugee-led Advocacy and Advisory Group. By profession, Danijel is an employment and industrial relations lawyer . He is also the inaugural winner of the Les Murray Award in 2022.

Geoff Gilbert is Sérgio Vieira de Mello Professor of International Human Rights & Humanitarian Law in the Essex Law School & Human Rights Centre at the University of Essex. He has worked with UNHCR on a series of research projects and training programmes over the past 30 years and in 2024 he became the first Senior Adviser to the Protection Policy and Legal Advice Section of the Division of International Protection of UNHCR. He is based in the UK.

Hasan Al-Akraa is a teacher by profession and a social worker by heart. He is the founder of Refugee Emergency Fund (REF), a refugee-led and non-profit organization dedicated to supporting refugees and undocumented migrants through emergency interventions. Hasan has been an active member in the refugee rights and activism field since 2016. 

James Milner is a researcher, practitioner and policy advisor on issues relating to the global refugee regime, global refugee policy and the politics of asylum in the global South. He is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Carleton University, in Canada. He is also currently Project Director of LERRN: The Local Engagement Refugee Research Network. James is based in Ottawa, Canada.

Keyvan Dorostkar is a lawyer and PhD candidate at the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law. His research focus and interest is in applying data and computational methods to understand and improve legal systems and processes. Keyvan’s current research examines the efficiency of Australia’s domestic refugee status determination procedures through a statistical lens. 

Linda Bartolomei is the co-convener of Forced Migration Research Network (formerly the Centre for Refugee Research) in the School of Social Sciences, at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. With Eileen Pittaway she is leading a multi-year project in the Asia- Pacific way to support the implementation and monitoring of the commitments to refugee women and girls in the Global Compact on Refugees.

Najeeba Wazefadost is the Co-founder and CEO of Asia Pacific Network of Refugees and the Founder Global Refugee Network. She has been involved in the development of regional and global refugee-led networks, and served as a gender auditor for UNHCR. Najeeba also represents APNOR at the Advisory Board to the UNHCR Task Team on Engagement and Partnership with Organizations led by Displaced and Stateless Persons. Najeeba is based in Sydney, Australia.

Nicholas McMurry is Programme Director in Law in Griffith College Cork, Ireland.  He is a researcher focused on the nexus between democracy and human rights and is the author of Participation and Democratic Innovation under International Human Rights Law, published by Routledge in 2023.

Noor Azizah is the co-founder and director of the Rohingya Maìyafuìnor Collaborative Network which is a women-led, Rohingya-led and refugee-led organisation. She is also part of the inaugural Australian Refugee Advisory Panel. Noor is based in Sydney, Australia.

Stephanie López holds a Ph.D. in Political Studies and International Relations. She has over 12 years of experience in research, advocacy, and consulting related to international migration, refugees, forced displacement, migration governance, and the rights of migrants and refugees, as well as migration policies. She has served as a policy advisor to governmental bodies and is currently a research associate at the Local Engagement Refugee Research Network (LERRN). Stephanie is based in Bogotá, Colombia.

Dr Tristan Harley is dual-trained as a lawyer and historian, and is a Senior Research Associate at the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law in the Faculty of Law & Justice. Tristan is recognised as an international expert in the fields of international refugee and human rights law. He has published widely in the field, including as co-author of Refugees, Regionalism and Responsibility (Edward Elgar Press, 2016). He has also worked as a consultant for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the World Refugee Council, the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network, the Asia Pacific Network of Refugees, the Asia Pacific Network for Refugees, and Act for Peace. 

Yusra Herzi is a Program Officer in Forced Displacement at PILnet, where she advances access to justice for refugees, stateless people, and displaced communities globally. Legally trained in corporate and human rights law, she has led strategic litigation and advocacy efforts that have contributed to strengthening refugee work rights and protections across Southeast Asia. Yusra holds a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) and a master’s degree in Strategic and Defence Studies, specializing in Transitional Justice and Post-Conflict Reconstruction.