Experts on countries of origin by country

Professor and Head of Research Group Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/S., Germany. 20 years of experience preparing expert reports concerning the issues mentioned under “Expertise: Areas of expertise”.

The Expert has expertise on forced displacement and migration in Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean and the links with gang violence, organised crime and corruption in the region. For the last fifteen years they have conducted academic and professional research on migration and internal displacement linked to violence, criminal groups and impunity in Central America and Mexico and on human trafficking in the broader region of Latin America and Caribbean, making several fieldwork trips and authoring NGOs reports and academic articles. They also have expertise in gender issues in the region, including gender-based violence, LGBTQ+ discrimination and hate crimes, and access to abortion and reproductive rights, including judicial persecution related to this.

The expert has ten years of experience writing expert witness reports for dozens of cases in the United Kingdom asylum system, with numerous judges commenting in determinations on how useful, relevant and comprehensive their reports are in informing decisions.

Dr. Muzong W. Kodi has more than 40 years of research, writing and lecturing on Africa as well as working and residing in several African countries. He has written more than 200 country expert reports for asylum seekers and other migrants from several African countries. He has also provided more than 100 authentication reports for official documents and several reports on nationality and adoption cases. As a consultant, he has been contracted by international organisations, regional African organisations, and multinational companies. He previously held senior management positions in Transparency International, Amnesty, International, and the African Centre for Monetary Studies. I also taught at the University of Nairobi in Kenya and the University of Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

He holds a PhD in African History from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, USA, and speaks fluent French, English, Lingala, and Kikongo, as well as intermediary Swahili.

Occupation: International Consultant in governance, anti-corruption, human rights, as well as political and investment risks in Africa.

Countries of expertise: the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Republic of Congo (ROC or Congo-Brazzaville), Angola, Ghana, Tanzania, Nigeria, Rwanda… Read more

Prof. Kostadinova is a Political Scientist specializing in political institutions in Bulgaria, and at the European Union level. The main focus of her research includes political parties and their rhetoric, government policies, role of media in the political process, and inter-institutional relations within the European Union. Prof. Kostadinova provides expertise on how government actors and policies impact individual rights, including those of marginalized groups. 

International Lawyer (LLB, LLM) | Country of Origin Information Specialist | Expert Witness

UK-based international lawyer, political scientist, and expert witness with over 20 years of experience in immigration, asylum, human rights, and Country of Origin Information (COI) research. Educated at the University of Prishtina and the University of Kent, with specialist expertise in International Law, International Relations, immigration law, and geopolitical risk assessment.

Author of more than 350 expert reports for UK Immigration and Asylum Tribunals, Extradition Courts, Crown Courts, and other judicial proceedings. Regularly instructed by solicitors, barristers, and courts to provide independent expert evidence on country conditions, political developments, human rights issues, and risk on return assessments.

Specialist areas of expertise include blood feuds, honour-based violence, human trafficking, modern slavery, forced labour, domestic abuse, organised crime, political persecution, human rights violations, torture, and inhuman or degrading treatment. Particular regional expertise in Western Balkans focusing on Albania and Kosovo.

Accredited by the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner (OISC) between 2005 and 2012 to provide regulated… Read more

Norma Kriger is South African born and raised. She has a BA in Economics and Mathematics and a BA (Hons) in Economics from the University of Cape Town. She got her PhD in Political Science from M.I.T. She taught at Johns Hopkins University for more than a decade and produced two Cambridge University Press books on peasant-guerrilla relations during Zimbabwe’s war of independence and on the ruling party’s use of former guerrillas in its state- and nation-building project. She has done consultancies for organizations such as Human Rights Watch, International Rescue Committee, USAID, and the World Bank working in Senegal, South Sudan, Timor Leste, and Zimbabwe. At the Library of Congress, she did research on terrorist organizations, among other topics. In 2025, she did research in Zimbabwe evaluating USAID’s democracy, rights and governance programs and in Namibia on rights for LGBTQI+ individuals. Her two current academic research projects are on multinational corporations’ strategies in situations of violent conflict, and on Zimbabwe’s military coup in 2017. She has been a consultant for Communitology since 2022. 

She finds access to the UK Home Office decisions before agreeing to write expert opinion reports helpful in determining if she can… Read more

Associate Professor at King’s College London with over two decades of internationally recognised expertise on crime, corruption, policing, prisons and criminal justice reform across the former Soviet Union. Known for combining rigorous academic research with high-level policy advisory roles for international organisations as well as UK and US government departments.

I am available to produce general country expert evidence reports on political, social, and economic conditions, corruption and crime environments, state protection capacity, and risks faced by specific social groups in my countries of expertise. I also provide expert reports and testimony for cases involving risks from political activism, exposure of corruption or organised crime, trafficking and exploitation, state collusion with criminal groups, police corruption, and inhumane detention conditions in former Soviet Union countries.

I have extensively travelled and conducted field research across former Soviet Union countries, gaining a deep understanding of how informal networks, weak rule of law, and criminal-state nexus structures create specific vulnerabilities for asylum claimants. My research has been published in leading academic journals and briefed to senior policymakers and officials… Read more

Joshua Kurlantzick is Senior Fellow for South Asia and Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he studies South Asian and Southeast Asian politics and economics, with a particular focus on democracy, authoritarianism, human rights, and political transitions. Experienced country of origin expert for all nationals from Southeast Asia and China; specialist from one of the leading think-tanks in the world. Have provided expert witness reports for fifteen years for asylum cases in the UK, Europe, and US for nationals from across South, Southeast, and Northeast Asia – related to political issues, trafficking, slavery, gangs, religion, and many other issues. Also have provided expert witness reports for non-asylum immigration cases for nationals from South, Southeast, and Northeast Asia.

Extensive experience in expert reports on all the countries listed, and also in particular, Kurds in country of origin and diaspora

Dr. Laker is a seasoned conflict, security and development practitioner with 15 years of experience with a specialized focus on forced displacement, gender, security sector reform, international humanitarian law, and transitional justice. Dr. Laker's consulting, research, and academic interests are grounded in the field of defence, strategic studies and international relations. He is currently Assistant Professor in international humanitarian law, conflict, security, military ethics, humanitarianism, and air, land, and sea operations to both junior and senior military officers, at Zayed Military University in Abu Dhabi, UAE. His book manuscript, Rethinking Internal Displacement: Geo-Political Games, Fragile States, & the Relief Industry was published in 2021. 

Intercultural and psychoanalytic psychotherapist, specialising in issues relevant to various Muslim countries, incl vendettas, honour killing, domestic violence, PTSD, Rape Trauma Syndrome, assault in detention and traumas of migration and exile.

Gideon Lasco, MD, PhD is a physician and medical anthropologist. He is senior lecturer at the University of the Philippines Diliman's Department of Anthropology, affiliate faculty at the UP College of Medicine’s Social Medicine Unit, research fellow at the Ateneo de Manila University's Development Studies Program, and honorary fellow at Hong Kong University's Centre for Criminology. 

I am a country-of-origin expert witness for Afghanistan. I prepare expert reports on different issues related to Afghan nationals for asylum, family and criminal cases. 

I also verify the authenticity of documents issued in Afghanistan. I have completed my degree at the King’s College London and am studying for a Diploma in Linguistics. 

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.

Professor Leclerc-Madlala is an anthropologist whose research and publications since 1995 have focused on the intersections of culture, sexuality, gender and HIV in Africa, especially in South Africa and in relation to young women’s vulnerability. Her academic work as former Professor and Head of the Anthropology Department at the University of KwaZulu-Natal was complimented by active involvement in the design, implementation and evaluation of HIV programs in South Africa and its neighboring countries. Dr. Leclerc Madlala retired as Senior Advisor for HIV and Health with the US Agency for International Development and currently serves as an Affiliated Senior  Researcher with the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. Professor Leclerc-Madlala got her start in development as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Gabon.

Prof Leclerc-Madlala has worked as a consultant to UNAIDS, SADC, the World Bank, and WHO, as well as to several regional non-government organizations and community-based organizations. She helped to draft South Africa’s Sexual Offences Act and the Children’s Bill and authored UNAIDS’ 2009 Action Brief on Inter-generational and Transactional sex in Southern Africa. She worked with the Commission on Gender… Read more

Dr. Elena Lesley is an anthropologist who has been working in Cambodia since the early 2000s. Much of her research has focused on mental illness and access to health services. She is particularly interested in cases related to mental illness or disability, addiction, healthcare systems and torture.

Natalie Letsa is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of South Carolina. Previously, she was the Wick Cary Assistant Professor of Political Economy in the Department of International and Area Studies at the University of Oklahoma and the Director of OU’s African Studies Institute. She received her Ph.D. in Government from Cornell University in 2017, and in 2018-19 she was a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University.

Jordan Levy is a sociocultural anthropologist with a research program focused on state formation, political culture, and out-migration in Honduras. He has been studying Honduras and conducting non-governmental (NGO) work in the country since 2001. He was present during the 2009 military coup, and has since studied how these events polarized Honduran society and have increased different forms of violence.

Dr. Levy’s doctoral dissertation focused on the political activism of schoolteachers and post-coup policies of governance. He has conducted expensive ethnographic research in Tegucigalpa and the Honduran South, through which he has learned about Hondurans’ experiences with gang-related violence, gender-based violence, and the persecution of political activists. At DePaul University (Chicago) he teaches a variety of courses for the Anthropology major, is an affiliated faculty member of the Latin American & Latino Studies program, and serves on the DePaul Migration Collaborative advisory council.

Tim Lindsey is leading expert on Indonesian law, and has advised governments, business, international organisations, courts and legal practitioners around the world, giving expert evidence in many courts and tribunals. He is Malcolm Smith Professor of Asian Law, Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor and Director of the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society at the Melbourne Law School. He holds a Bachelor of Laws, Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Letters from the University of Melbourne and completed his PhD thesis in Indonesian studies. A fluent Indonesian speaker, he is a specialist in a wide range of aspects of Indonesian law, including public law, citizenship law, criminal law, commercial law, inheritance, and family law. He has won teaching awards and has previously practised as barrister. His more than 100 publications include Indonesia: Law and Society; Islam, Law and the State in Southeast Asia (three volumes); The Indonesian Constitution; Drugs Law and Practice in Southeast Asia; Religion, Law and Intolerance in Indonesia; Strangers Next Door: Indonesia and Australia in the Asian Century; Crime and Punishment in Indonesia; Indonesian Law; and The Routledge Handbook of Indonesian Law (in press, 2026) He is a founder and an… Read more

Marilisa Lorusso is a regular contributor to Osservatorio Balcani Caucaso Transeuropa, an Italian think tank and online magazine with approximately 5,000 daily views.

She has been deployed by the Italian Foreign Ministry as an expert for post-war civilian monitoring missions in Georgia. Additionally, she has served in a non-diplomatic capacity at the Geneva International Discussions on the Georgian peace settlement while based at the European Union Council in Brussels.