Cathryn Costello

Cathryn Costello is Andrew W. Mellon Associate Professor in International Human Rights and Refugee Law, at the Refugee Studies Centre (RSC), Oxford, with a fellowship at St Antony's College. Her research spans international and EU migration and refugee law.  She has published widely on many aspects of migration, mobility and human rights law, including immigration detention, family migration, and all aspects of the EU Common European Asylum System.  

Her recent articles include (with Michelle Foster) ‘Non-refoulement as custom and jus cogens? Putting the prohibition to the test’ (2015) Netherlands Yearbook of International Law 46:273-327. Her monograph on the Human Rights of Migrants and Refugees in European Law was published at the end of 2015 by OUP.  She is also the co-author of a two studies for the European Parliament, Study on Enhancing the Common European Asylum System and Alternatives to Dublin (2015) and Study on New Approaches, Alternative Avenues and Means of Access to Asylum Procedures for Persons Seeking International Protection.   Another research interest is the intersection of labour rights and migration control.  She is the co-editor (with Professor Mark Freedland) of Migrants at Work:  Immigration and Vulnerability in Labour Law (Oxford University Press 2014) and has also written 'Migrants and Forced Labour: A Labour Law Response' in A Bogg, C Costello, A Davies, J Prassl (eds) The Autonomy of Labour Law (Hart Publishing 2014).   In 2016, she was awarded an individual European Research Council grant for a project entitled REF-MIG, on mobility, status and rights of refugees.  

From 2003-2013, she was Francis Reynolds Fellow & Tutor in EU & Public law at Worcester College, Oxford.  She began her academic career in 1998 as Lecturer in European Law at the Law School, Trinity College Dublin, and from 2000-2003, she also held the position of Director of the Irish Centre for European Law. She has been a Visiting Professor at the University of San Francisco and a visiting research fellow at NYU School of Law and Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne.