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Flávia Oliveira Ribeiro

Flávia graduated in Law from São Paulo State University (UNESP), Brazil, in 2020 and was admitted to the Brazilian Bar in the same year. In 2023, she completed a Master of Laws at the same university, funded by a national scholarship from CAPES. Since 2024, she has been a research assistant at the Academy for European Human Rights Protection at the University of Cologne, where she is writing her doctoral thesis under the supervision of Professor Dr. Dr. h.c. Dr. h.c. Angelika Nußberger M.A.    

Flávia’s professional experience includes working as a judicial clerk for a civil court judge at the Court of Justice of São Paulo State from 2018 to 2020; volunteering at the Caritas Refugee Welcome and Counselling Service in São Paulo in 2022; and working as a teaching assistant on the Public International Law course at São Paulo State University in the same year. From April 2023 to August 2025, she also served as a volunteer assistant to the Global Academic Interdisciplinary Network (GAIN). At the University of Cologne, she coached the university’s team in the 14th Helga Pedersen Moot Court Competition (2025-26) and currently teaches an introductory course on the Inter-American Human Rights System.    

As additional training, Flávia has attended the International Refugee Law Course at the International Institute of Humanitarian Law in Sanremo (2023); the Inter-American Human Rights System Course organised by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (2024); the PhD Methodology Summer School of the iCourts and MOBILE centres at the University of Copenhagen (2025); and the Odysseus Network Summer School on EU Law and Policy on Immigration and Asylum at the Université libre de Bruxelles, where she coordinated the English-speaking group (2025).  

Research Areas

  • Criminalisation of Humanitarian Assistance and the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
  • EU Migration and Asylum Law
  • Law of the Sea: Search and Rescue
  • International Refugee and Migration Law
  • International Human Rights Law (European and Inter-American systems)

Current Research Project

Flávia Oliveira Ribeiro is currently writing her doctoral thesis, ‘NGO-Led Rescue in the Mediterranean: Criminal and Administrative Law as Tools of Obstruction in Italy and Germany’.

Description

Flávia’s research examines a conflict of norms. According to the law of the sea, the captain of any ship that learns of persons in distress and is able to do so must proceed to their rescue, regardless of their nationality or status (UNCLOS, SOLAS and SAR Convention). At the same time, several European states have developed criminal and administrative instruments to address the facilitation of irregular entry into their countries. These legal instruments were designed to address migrant smuggling, which international law defines as the pursuit of a financial or other material benefit (SoM Protocol), a requirement absent from the European Union framework. As a result, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) conducting search and rescue (SAR) operations in the Central Mediterranean face prosecution and administrative sanctions for carrying out the very rescues that are required by the law of the sea.

This tension is analysed through two case studies. Italy, the primary case study, combines administrative measures such as port closures, inspections and vessel detentions with criminal proceedings against the crews of rescue vessels. Germany, the secondary case study, represents an emerging legislative trajectory: the 2024 reform of the smuggling offence in § 96 of the Residence Act (Aufenthaltsgesetz) could create legal risks for the many NGOs based in Germany that conduct SAR operations in the Mediterranean.

The research pursues three objectives: to map and classify the criminal and administrative measures used against NGO-led SAR operations; to assess their ‘chilling effect’ on those operations and on the protection of refugees and migrants; and to evaluate the compatibility of these measures with obligations under international human rights law, in particular the principle of non-refoulement, and under the law of the sea. Methodologically, the thesis combines a doctrinal analysis of legislation, case law and policy documents with semi-structured interviews with lawyers who represent the NGOs concerned.

Publications

Peer-reviewed journal article

  • Nußberger, Angelika & Oliveira Ribeiro, Flávia. One Size Fits All? The Right to Truth between Universalism and Particularism (under review at the German Law Journal).

  • Oliveira Ribeiro, Flávia & Stiller, Marlene. Access to Justice in Frontex Operations: The Link Between Administrative Transparency and Effective Judicial Protection (forthcoming).

  • Jubilut, Liliana Lyra; Oliveira Ribeiro, Flávia & Siqueira, Estela Cristina Vieira de. Humanitarian Visas in Latin America: A Global South innovation with a decolonial approach to international protection (forthcoming).

  • Jubilut, Liliana Lyra; Siqueira, Estela Cristina Vieira de & Oliveira Ribeiro, Flávia. The Framework for Prima Facie Recognition of Refugee Status in Brazil: Transforming Protection Based on Nationality to Include Vulnerable Social Groups (forthcoming).

  • Jubilut, Liliana Lyra; Oliveira Ribeiro, Flávia & Siqueira, Estela Cristina Vieira de (2024). The Cartagena Declaration at 40: the role of academia in protecting refugees in Latin America. Pensamiento Propio, n. 59, year 29 (Original in Portuguese).

  • Jubilut, Liliana Lyra & Oliveira Ribeiro, Flávia (2024). Brazil’s use of gross and generalised human rights violations as grounds for refugee status on the 25th anniversary of the Brazilian National Committee for Refugees. Périplos: Revista de Pesquisa sobre Migrações, 8(1), 32-61 (Original in Portuguese).

  • Borges, Daniel Damásio; Rodrigues, Maria Eduarda & Oliveira Ribeiro, Flávia (2023). International Health Regulations and International Human Mobility: An analysis of the Brazilian case during the Covid-19 pandemic. Revista Brasileira de Estudos Políticos, 127, 173-206 (Original in Portuguese).

Book-chapters
Blogpost
Policy Paper
Theses

Flávia Oliveira Ribeiro

PhD candidate and Research Assistant

Academy for European Human Rights Protection

website

email

flavia.oliveira(at)uni-koeln(dot)de

phone

+49 221 470 76281

building

125

address

Kerpenerstr. 30
50937 Cologne

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