Catherine Woollard is Adjunct Professor in law at the Brussels School of Governance. She teaches on the course Legal Aspects of Migration. Since 2016 she has worked as Director of the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE). ECRE is a pan-European alliance of 110 NGOs in 40 European countries working to defend the rights of refugees in Europe and in Europe’s foreign policies, with a strong focus on the legal underpinnings of asylum policy and practice. ECRE’s work covers litigation, advocacy and communications.
From 2008 to 2015, Catherine was the Executive Director of EPLO, the European Peacebuilding Liaison Office, a Brussels-based network working on peace and security. Previously, she managed international programmes and advocacy at NGOs including Conciliation Resources, Minority Rights Group International and Transparency International. She has also worked as a civil servant, as a lecturer in political science, and as a consultant advising governments and international organisations. Catherine is frequently invited to give presentations and to comment in the international media on asylum and migration issues. She holds undergraduate degrees in politics and law and an LLM with distinction (specialisation: Public International Law).