Experts on countries of origin by country

My primary regional expertise lies in the Horn of Africa, particularly Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, and broader Sahel region (specifically Niger, Northern Nigeria, Chad, Central African Republic, and Mali). I also have thematic expertise on trafficking along Gulf of Aden and Red Sea transit routes, including Yemen. 

I specialise in, sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) claims, trafficking-related protection claims, child asylum cases, statelessness (including Rohingya claims), and Article 1F exclusion analysis under the 1951 Refugee Convention. 

My reports are prepared in accordance with expert witness duties to the Tribunal as set out in the Practice Directive and are designed to assist the court with independent, evidence-based analysis. I have undertaken specialist expert witness training at the Refugee Law Initiative. 

I am an international refugee law expert with over a decade of frontline experience in refugee status determination with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). 

I have served with UNHCR across Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, including Somalia (2023–2024), Niger (2024), Ethiopia (2019–2020), Tunisia (2024–2025), Egypt (2016–2017), and India (2018–2019), conducting over 2,000 assessments.… Read more

Dr Hazel Margaret Cameron – Expert Witness and Country Specialist Independent expert on barriers to reintegration and risks on return in a range of African countries, with evidence judicially commended and relied upon in the UK, US, EU, and Hong Kong. Dr Cameron is a critical criminologist and internationally recognised expert witness specialising in barriers to reintegration faced by failed asylum seekers and deportees. 

Her expertise covers: 

Dr Cameron has been instructed in more than three hundred cases of asylum, deportation, and human rights cases, including claims under Articles 3 and 8 ECHR. Her reports have been relied upon in courts and tribunals in the UK, US, EU, and Hong Kong. Judicial decisions consistently commend her evidence as “cogent, impartial, and highly persuasive,” describing it as “compelling, impartially applied, with a… Read more

Kendra Dupuy is a social science researcher and Assistant Professor of African politics. She has expertise with quantitative & qualitative research on energy, climate change, environment, natural resource management, democracy, human rights, civil society, education, and forced migration. She is a certified project manager, technical writer, and program & project evaluator. She has has deep expertise in the African region and specifically on countries in West Africa, East Africa, southern Africa, and the DR Congo.

Audra Grant works at the intersection of conflict, human rights, and governance in fragile, conflict-affected settings in the Middle East and Africa. As an international development professional and subject matter expert at NORC, her projects addressed diverse issues affecting vulnerable populations, from human rights, illicit trade, extremism, and organized crime to child labor and youth recruitment into violence. Audra has over 20 years of experience as a practitioner, security and policy professional and academic and has worked in nearly every country in the Middle East and North Africa and also in over 20 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, providing policy and program advice to the USG, private sector, and international donors. She held senior positions at RAND and was a career analyst at the U.S. Department of State / INR. A former assistant professor at University Al-Akhawayn, Ifrane, Morocco, she is a Senior Lecturer at The George Washington University. Audra is also an advisor for the Women’s Ambassador Foundation, Howard University, and reviewer for the Journal of Peace and Development and Contemporary Review of the Middle East. 

Michelle Johnson is Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Sociology & Anthropology at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. A cultural anthropologist specializing in religion and ritual in West Africa and the contemporary African diaspora (i.e., West African immigrants in Europe and the United States), she has conducted extensive fieldwork in Guinea-Bissau and with Guinean immigrants in Portugal. She has held grants from the Social Science Research Council, the U.S. Department of Education (Fulbright-Hays), and the Institute for Citizens &; Scholars (formerly the Woodrow Wilson Foundation). Her articles have appeared in the Journal of Religion in Africa, African Studies Review, Anthropology Quarterly, and Food and Foodways. She is author of Re-making Islam in African Portugal: Lisbon - Mecca - Bissau (Indiana University Press, 2020) and co-author (with Edmund “Ned” Searles) of Reciprocity Rules:Friendship and Compensation in Fieldwork Encounters (Lexington Books, 2021). She provides COI expert information and testimony on asylum cases pertaining to West Africa and the contemporary African diaspora on the topics of female genital cutting, arranged (forced) marriage, and religious persecution and freedom. She teaches courses on… Read more

Academic and practicing attorney, based in USA (admitted to AZ bar), experienced in written and oral expert reports in variety of national formats, on many social groups and diverse matters in West Africa and Africa broadly.

Depending on issue/claim basis, I may be able to provide expertise on any country in West Africa. I have testified and provided expertise for cases from: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, The Gambia, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo.

Dr. Onuoha is a HIPAA Certified expert witness who has written several expert witness reports and opinions, and testified in immigration evaluation and immigration detention hearings over the years. His expertise spans asylum, human rights and human security claims, persecution and discrimination based on political associations (including party politics, social and environmental activism), religion, ethnicity, identity, customs and culture (gender-based persecution ranging from forced marriage, child marriage, polygamy and to FGM, among other gender-related cases), and self-determination cases of people fleeing violence and conflict from West African countries with similar dynamics.

As an African social anthropologist, he has taught and designed courses in American universities bordering on Female genital cutting, Gang-related violence, General country knowledge, LGBTQ+ issues, Political associations, Race/ethnicity, Religion, Trafficking, Violence against children, Violence against women. He has extensive experience on a variety of theorical, epistemological and practical cultural problems in African societies.

Dr David Seddon is a social scientist with more than 40 years experience in Africa and the Middle East, and Nepal, who has produced around 500 country expert witness reports 

Bruce Whitehouse is Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Lehigh University, where he is also affiliated with the Africana Studies and Global Studies programs. He teaches courses pertaining to culture, globalization, capitalism, humanitarianism and development, and contemporary African societies. His first book, Migrants and Strangers in an African City (Indiana University Press, 2012), examines the multigenerational flow of people from West Africa to the Congo River Basin. His second book, Enduring Polygamy (Rutgers University Press, 2023), studies the resilience of plural marriage in Bamako, Mali. His research has been published in journals including African Studies Review, Global Networks, Hommes et Migrations, and Medical Anthropology Quarterly. He lives in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Dr Leo Zeilig is a writer and researcher who has published extensively on African politics and society for more than twenty-five years. He is an editor of the Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE) and has written a range of books, reports and articles for a variety of organisations and audiences.