About me
I am an Assistant Professor at University College Roosevelt, where I teach courses dealing with public international law, international human rights law, constitutional law, and social inequality. I hold a Ph.D. in Law from the Université Libre de Bruxelles and postgraduate degrees in international law (Utrecht University) and international relations (University of Cambridge). In autumn 2021, I was a Fulbright-Schuman Scholar at the School of Law of the University of California in Los Angeles.
Over the past ten years, my research has concerned the human rights of vulnerable migrants such as refugees, asylum seekers and undocumented migrants. As the senior researcher of the Cities of Refuge project (2017-2022), I specifically looked into the international legal obligations and policies of European cities and local governments in the domains of migration and integration. That said, I have a broader interest in issues of social justice and their connection to human rights, both as legal guarantees and as normative aspirations.
Being a UCR alumnus (Class of 2010), I personally benefitted from the critical and interdisciplinary perspective provided by its Liberal Arts education. What stands out to me now that I’m a lecturer is that I’m able to share my passion for public law and questions of social stratification with a diverse and motivated student body. UCR also provides a wonderful space to develop new and challenging educational projects: since 2021, I supervise a group of UCR students as they participate in the Philip C. Jessup Moot Court Competition, where they compete against postgraduate law students.
Selected publications
- Baumgärtel, M. and Miellet, S., eds. (2022), Theorizing Local Migration Law and Governance, Cambridge University Press, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009047661
- Oomen, B., Baumgärtel, M., Miellet, S., Durmus, E., and Sabchev, T. (2021), ‘Strategies of Divergence: Local Authorities, Law, and Discretionary Spaces in Migration Governance’, Journal of Refugee Studies 34, no. 4, pp. 3608-3628, https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/feab062
- Baumgärtel, M. (2020), ‘Facing the Challenge of Migratory Vulnerability in the European Court of Human Rights’, Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights 38, no. 1, pp. 12-29, https://doi.org/10.1177/0924051919898127
- Baumgärtel, M. (2019), Demanding Rights: Europe’s Supranational Courts and the Dilemma of Migrant Vulnerability, Cambridge University Press, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108677837
- Oomen, B., and Baumgärtel, M. (2018), ‘Frontier Cities: The Rise of Local Authorities as an Opportunity for International Human Rights Law’, European Journal of International Law 29, no. 2, pp. 607-630, https://doi.org/10.1093/ejil/chy021
- Baumgärtel, M. (2018), ‘Part of the Game: Government Strategies against European Litigation Concerning Migrant Rights’, in T. Gammeltoft-Hansen and T. Aalberts (eds.), The Changing Practices of International Law, Cambridge University Press, pp. 103-128, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108349420.006