Marleen Maes was appointed as a judge in asylum and immigration cases at the Council for Alien Law Litigation in 2012. Since June 2022, she fulfills a first mandate as chamber president. She graduated in 1998 with a degree in law (Lic. Jur.) and obtained a Master of Laws (LL.M) International Human Rights Law in 1999 at the University of Essex (UK). In 2014, she obtained her PhD at the KU Leuven with a thesis on 'National additional protection statuses for foreigners: is there a need for further EU harmonisation and/or strengthening of the national level?’
Marleen began her career as an International Law research assistant at the University of Antwerp (1999-2000). As a legal advisor to the Belgian Immigration Office (2000-2002), she was responsible for the transposition of EU legislation on asylum and migration into national law. She then left for Sudan to become a Refugee Status Determination Lawyer for UNHCR (2003). Upon return, she worked as a Justice and Home Affairs Counsellor at the Belgian Permanent Representation to the European Union, focusing on EU asylum and migration policy and legislation (2003- 2008). She participated in the first UN High Level Dialogue on Migration and Development in September 2006 at the UN New York headquarters, and was actively involved in the organisation of the first UN Global Forum on Migration and Development, held in July 2007 in Brussels. She represented Belgium at the Intergovermental Consultations on Migration, Asylum and Refugees (IGC) in Geneva.
Subsequently, she worked as a Migration Law researcher at the University of Leuven (2008-2012) and as National Project Officer for UNHCR in Brussels (2008-2009). From the 2015-2016 academic year, she was appointed as a visiting professor of Migration Law at the University of Antwerp.
Marleen is a member of the European Union Asylum Agency (EUAA) Judicial Trainers' Pool and a member of the International Association for Refugee and Migration Law Judges (IARMJ). She has given several workshops on cultural diversity in the courtroom in the framework of "Judges in Europe facing new challenges", a training organised by the European Judicial Training Network (EJTN) and the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology (e.g. underaged marriages, kefala, ...).
Areas of Expertise:
- Asylum and Migration Law
- Free movement within the EU
- Human Rights
- Humanitarian Law
Selected Publications:
- Ryckaseys, M. and Maes, M. (2019) Niet‑begeleide minderjarige vreemdelingen in het EU‑asiel‑ en migratierecht.
- Maes, M. and Wijnants, A. (2017) Het Handvest van de Grondrechten van de Europese Unie: een nieuwe speler in het vreemdelingenrecht.
- Maes, M., et al. (2011) The International Dimension of EU Asylum and Migration Policy: framing the issues.
- Maes, M. (2011) The Implementation of the Return Directive in Belgium: Focus on Suspension of Removal.