Experts on countries of origin by country

The Expert is a columnist, writing on Vietnam. He has focused on producing expert reports in relation to Vietnam issues. He has good experience in providing country expert reports for immigration solicitors representing Vietnamese clients. He also attended several conferences and expert group meetings like The Global Organized Crime Index in the past. He is a graduate of the The University of West London with a 2:1 degree. His research and publications have focused on economic, financial, social, political developments human trafficking, political dissent, religious freedom, human trafficking and the Vietnam state security system cracking down on dissidents so on.

Dr. Gospel Obele – Research and Development Economist with 11+ years of senior-level experience in economic strategy, market intelligence, and policy innovation.

Write over 25 articles, reports and publication, advising 50+ high-profile institutions with combined $850m in earnings, across 30+ sectors and 10+ countries.

Delivered 350+ expert media appearances (BBC, Al Jazeera, CGTN, Arise TV, Africa News) as a recognized voice on markets, economy, and social development.

Dr. Imdat Oner is a Senior Policy Analyst at the Jack D. Gordon Institute and a former diplomat with over two years of service in Venezuela. He holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from Florida International University, specializing in Latin American politics.

Dr. Oner is an expert in Venezuelan political affairs, with a focus on government repression, opposition persecution, and human rights violations. His work provides critical insights into state-controlled security forces, judicial persecution, and extrajudicial threats against dissidents. Leveraging his diplomatic experience and extensive research, he offers expert reports for asylum cases, analyzing the risks faced by opposition members through firsthand knowledge, international human rights documentation, and regional political analysis.

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.

Emir Onur Romano Cilek is a human-rights practitioner and country-conditions specialist on Turkey, with fifteen years documenting and contesting the persecution of non-believers, apostates (ex-Muslims), converts, secular activists, and LGBTQ+ people. He founded and leads Ateizm Derneği — the first legally recognised atheist organisation in a Muslim-majority country — and in March 2026 delivered an oral statement at the 61st Session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, on behalf of Humanists International and Ateizm Derneği, addressing Turkey's Penal Code Article 216(3). Through the Atheist Refugee Assistance Program, the Atheist Support Network, and the Secular Rescue Program, he has assessed and documented many hundreds of protection cases originating from Turkey and the surrounding region, including evidentiary documentation relied on in UNHCR and immigration proceedings. His expertise covers the legal framework criminalising religious dissent (Penal Code Articles 216 and 301), state and societal treatment of the non-religious and apostates, family- and community-based ("honour") risk, surveillance and prosecution of activists, and the situation of LGBTQ+ individuals and women at risk.

Academic and international development consultant with expertise around the cross-cutting themes of violence, extremism, anti-corruption, human rights, elections natural resources, poverty, community development, and risks.

Kefa M. Otiso is a Professor of Geography at Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio, USA. His research interests are in urbanization, globalization, international migration, development, environment, governance, and cultural change in the context of Africa and North America. He teaches a variety of courses in urban, economic, population, and cultural geography, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) applications. He was the founding president of the US-based Kenya Scholars and Studies Association (KESSA) and is a former Commissioner on Ohio’s New African Immigrants Commission. He is a past editor of the African Geographical Review and has presented papers at many national and international conferences including those organized by the Kenya Scholars and Studies Association, American Association of Geographers, African Studies Association, and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning. He is a frequent media commentator on US, Kenyan, and other international news outlets. He is also the author of Culture and Customs of Tanzania (Greenwood Press, 2013) and Culture and Customs of Uganda (Greenwood Press, 2006), co-author of Population Geography: Problems, Concepts, and Prospects (Kendall Hunt Publishing, 2013), co-editor of African Immigrants and the… Read more

Jessica Ott is an anthropologist and policy fellow whose research and publications have focused on gender, civil society, human rights, health equity, domestic work, and Islam. She has extensive research experience in Zanzibar and has also studied and worked for several years in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Dr. Ott most recently completed a Science & Technology Policy Fellowship with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, during which she worked as a Human Rights Policy/Research Fellow in the State Department’s human rights bureau and as a Center for Global Health Studies Research Fellow at the NIH. Prior to that, she worked as an international health systems research scientist, specializing in gender and qualitative methods, at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Karen O’Reilly is a country expert who has produced over 300 reports for asylum, criminal, deportation, high profile and country guidance cases in the UK, US, and Canada. Her expertise derives in large part from her extensive experience as a Refugee Resettlement Expert and Protection Officer for UNHCR, beginning in 2006. She is also a writer who has published extensively on refugee-related issues. 

Dr. Pacifico has been an international lawyer since 1993, with expertise in International Human Rights Law, particularly human rights of refugees and forced migrants, since 1997. She has been an associate professor for Law and International Relations at Maceio, Brasilia, and Joao Pessoa universities since 1997.  She has taught International Law/Relations, Human Rights, and Refugee and Migration Issues for more than two decades. Dr. Pacifico has also presented seminars, given lectures and interviews, published papers, supervised theses and dissertations on these issues, and my own research principally focuses on human rights of legal minorities and human rights protections of refugees and legal minorities in Brazil and abroad.

Currently, Dr. Pacifico is a full-time associate professor in International Relations at Paraiba State University and a full-time collaborator/researcher at the Post-Graduate Program in Comparative Studies on the Americas, at University of Brasilia, both in Brazil, in addition to being a Senior Research Associate at the Refugee Law Initiative at University of London, UK. She was a post-doctoral fellow at the York University Centre for Refugee Studies, Canada (2009 to 2010), visiting research fellow at the Refugee Studies… Read more

Dr Imranali Panjwani has lived, studied and worked in the UK, Middle East, East-Africa and Australia as an academic, lawyer, chaplain and community worker. He has written 200+ country experts reports for asylum seekers under the instructions of UK and international law firms. His reports have been commented upon by judges and lawyers and draw upon his diverse legal, cultural and religious experiences.

For his access to justice work in immigration and asylum he received the national Spirit in the Community award at the GG2 Leadership & Diversity Awards in 2025 and Highly Commended Access to Justice award at the UK Diversity Legal Awards in 2021.

Alexandra Panzarelli earned her Ph.D. in Political Science from The New School for Social Research in 2026. She has 15 years of professional and academic experience in media, politics, and human rights. She is skilled in international affairs, media monitoring, political analysis and consultation, and democracy and governance. She has extensive knowledge of key political actors, civil society, and social impact program investors in the Latin American region.

 Dr. Panzarelli is the author of several articles on human rights, elections, populism, and social movements. As a professor of political science, she possesses extensive expertise in Venezuelan political affairs, both as a local and as an expert in the field. With over 15 years of experience working in human rights and the political landscape of the country, she has developed a deep understanding of its complexities. Additionally, her expertise in Guyana, Bolivia and Ecuador stems from her role as a Program Manager for the International Republican Institute and Political advisor for Canada respectively, where she collaborated with scholars, NGOs, and human rights activists. This experience has provided her with valuable insights into human rights, legal issues, and their political… Read more

The Expert is a North Africa and Middle East specialist and has produced over 400 expert witness reports for the UK courts across a range of countries including Libya, Iraq (including KRI), Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria. The Expert has also served as an expert witness in several terrorism related cases in the UK, US and Ireland; as an expert witness in a Libyan case at the Commercial Division of the UK’s High Court; and as a country guidance expert on Libya in the UK courts (2017). The Expert has also carried out numerous linguistic and nationality assessments and provides translation services (Arabic-English). 

The Expert is an academic researcher and independent consultant whose expertise ranges from the study of Vietnamese and South East Asian socio-political issues to global labour exploitation and migrant workers' rights.

Dr Paszkiewicz is an anthropologist with over 20 years of experience in Refugee Studies, with a geographical focus on the Horn of Africa and Eritrean forced migration in particular. 

Social work expert reports for the Immigration and Asylum Chamber, written to Part 3 section 9 of the Practice Direction in force from 1 November 2024: twenty pages, every source shown, every adverse point put. Reports: carer and dependency (Kugathas and Article 8 claims resting on care); family impact of deportation ("unduly harsh", assessed for this child and this partner); best interests of the child (section 55); sole responsibility and adult dependent relative. Registered with Social Work England. Best Interests Assessor. More than thirteen years as a qualified social worker, instructed and cross-examined as an expert in the Family Court more than 100 times. I read the family court papers, and the report engages with them.

Not country-specific: assessment of families in England and Wales, and remote assessment of family members overseas by video

Dr Tara Polzer Ngwato is a Founding Director of Social Impact Insights Africa, based in Johannesburg, South Africa. She has twenty-five years of experience in social development research, social change facilitation and evidence-based decision-making support. She specialises in breaking complex concepts and systems, like social cohesion and national reading ecosystems, into clearly defined and measurable indicators and tracking change over time to inform adaptive strategy. She is lead designer and implementer of Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning processes at a national scale (Indlulamithi Barometer on Social Cohesion in South Africa; South African National Reading Barometer; M&E support to national donor and NGO coalitions in foundational literacy and numeracy) institutional strategy scale (Durban University of Technology ENVISION2030 Strategy Tracker) and project level. Tara’s areas of content expertise include human mobility/migration, education, social cohesion/unrest, and community development related to extractive industries (mining and renewable energy production). She is a highly quoted author on migration, social cohesion, education and health, with over 700 citations of her work on Research Gate. Tara holds a BA in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge… Read more

As a prison conditions and detention expert, Vicki Prais has comprehensive, expert level legal and practical knowledge of international and regional human rights standards on criminal justice and detention. Vicki has in-country experience working in different settings, including Kosovo, Armenia, Albania, Ukraine, Ethiopia, Japan, Georgia, Thailand, Bangladesh, Canada, Spain and Russia and a very strong understanding of penal related issues through practical visits to closed institutions in various countries (Canada, Georgia, Japan, Spain, Turkey and England & Wales). 

Vicki Prais is an internationally recognised award-winning human rights lawyer, independent human rights consultant, academic, trainer and career coach with expertise in the protection of prisoners’ rights, prison reform, humane detention and the prohibition of torture and ill-treatment in detention. She brings 29 years of professional experience in International Organisations (the UN, Council of Europe), the British Government (Human Rights Advisor to the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, Government Legal Department), civil society (Amnesty International, Penal Reform International), national human rights institutions (the Scottish Human Rights Commission) and academia (Visiting… Read more