Dr. Efrat Arbel

Biography

Efrat Arbel is an Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia's Peter Allard School of Law. Her research examines legal rights negotiated in defined liminal legal spaces such as borders, detention centers, and prisons. Dr. Arbel has published widely in her fields and completed her master's studies and doctoral degree at Harvard Law School. Previously, she was a Canada Research Fellow at the Weatherhead Centre for International Affairs and a researcher at the Harvard Immigration Refugee Law Clinic. She held a postdoctoral appointment at the University of British Columbia and had visiting appointments at the Oxford Centre for Criminology and the European University Institute. Currently, Dr. Arbel is the principal investigator of a SSHRC-funded study exploring the lived experiences of immigration detention in Canada. She received the 2022 Killam Accelerator Research Fellowship and has served as an expert witness in Canadian judicial proceedings, preparing independent research reports for government agencies and engaging in consultations with the Canada Border Services Agency and the Canadian Immigration Refugee Board. Dr. Arbel is also involved in pro bono litigation and field research, having appeared as an intervener in significant Supreme Court cases. She is part of the Executive Committee of UBC’s Centre for Migration Studies and serves on the International Editorial Board of Oxford University’s Border Criminologies.

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