Efrat Arbel

Efrat Arbel publishes and teaches in refugee law, prison law, constitutional law, and tort law. Her research examines how legal rights are negotiated and defined in liminal legal spaces like the border, the detention center, and the prison.

Prior to joining the Allard School of Law, Dr. Arbel completed her masters and doctoral studies at Harvard Law School, where she received numerous fellowships and awards, was Canada Research Fellow with the Weatherhead Centre for International Affairs, and worked as a researcher with the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Law Clinic. She held a postdoctoral appointment at the University of British Columbia between 2012-2014, with visiting appointments at the Oxford Center for Criminology (2013) and the European University Institute (2014).

Currently, Dr. Arbel is principal investigator on a SSHRC funded project that brings the insights of trauma-informed practice to immigration detention. She is also analyzing the application of the law of torts to immigration detention, evaluating the impact of Canadian border restrictions on refugees, and mapping the treatment of gender, gender-identity, and gender expression in refugee decision making. Together with PhD candidate Molly Joeck, Dr. Arbel is recipient of a Covid-19 Wall Solutions Award for research examining how the onset of Covid-19 has impacted immigration detention.

Combining her academic work with legal practice, Dr. Arbel is engaged in advocacy and litigation involving refugee and prisoner rights. She has engaged in consultations with various government agencies, including the Immigration and Refugee Board and the Canada Border Services Agency. She has been commissioned to produce expert opinions in ongoing challenges before Canadian courts, and to produce independent research reports for government agencies. She also conducts training for the Immigration and Refugee Board’s Gender Taskforce. Dr. Arbel is a frequent media commentator on refugee and prison issues, and has been cited by numerous media outlets, including The Globe and Mail, National Post, and The New York Times.

Dr. Arbel serves on the Executive Committee of UBC’s Centre for Migration Studies and is a member of the International Editorial Board of Oxford University’s Border Criminologies.