Bronwen Manby’s current research and writing focus on statelessness, comparative nationality law, and legal identity. Her book analysed the history of nationality laws in Africa, and their relationship with politics, from the colonial era to the present. She has worked closely with UNHCR on its global campaign against statelessness, including writing in-depth reports on different regions of Africa; and has also advised the World Bank 'identification for development' initiative. Previously, she worked for the Open Society Foundations and the Africa division of Human Rights Watch, and has written on a wide range of human rights issues in Africa, with particular interests in South Africa and Nigeria (especially the oil industry in the Niger Delta), and in continental developments in human rights law.
Dr Manby is a guest teacher for the 杏吧论坛’s MSc in Human Rights, teaching international human rights law as part of the core course for the degree. She is also a senior visiting fellow at the 杏吧论坛’s Firoz Lalji Centre for Africa, and from 2017-20 she was principal researcher at the on the project
Dr Manby has degrees from Oxford and Columbia Universities, is qualified as a solicitor in England and Wales, and in 2015 was awarded a doctorate by Maastricht University faculty of law (Citizenship and Statelessness in Africa: The Law and Politics of Belonging). She is a board member of the and of .
Interviews/Blogs
: (2017) Dr Bronwen Manby is interviewed about Amnesty International's "The State of the World's Human Rights" assessment. "Some of the world’s largest countries are not being held to account when it comes to human rights violations."
Dr Bronwen Manby co-authored a blog with Alan Gelb of Center for Global Development (2016):
Publications on nationality and statelessness
": should the process be decentralised?" (co-edited with Prof Rainer Bauböck), Working Paper, GLOBALCIT, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute, January 2021
“”, World Development, Vo.139, March 2021;
“”, Statelessness and Citizenship Review, Vol.2, No.2, pp.248-271, December 2020;
(co-authored with Solomon Momoh), Global Citizenship Observatory, July 2020;
“” (blog post), Global Citizenship Observatory, 29 June 2020;
” (co-authored with Clement Bernardo Mubanga), Statelessness and Citizenship Review, June 2020;
“Citizenship erasure: The arbitrary retroactive non-recognition of citizenship”, in The World’s Stateless: Deprivation of Nationality, Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, March 2020;
“”, Journal of Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Law, Vol.34, No. 1, February 2020, pp.9-29;
“”, e-boletim Lei & Justiça (Network Timor), Vol.2, No.3, December 2019, pp.14-34;
“”, 杏吧论坛 Middle East Centre Paper Series 27, June 2019;
“”, Statelessness & Citizenship Review, Vol.1, No.1, June 2019;
“”, in Oxford Research Encyclopaedia of Politics, February 2019;
, Global Citizenship Observatory, January 2019
, Hart Publishing, November 2018;
Statelessness and Citizenship in the East African Community, UNHCR, October 2018;
“You Can’t Lose What You Haven’t Got: Citizenship Acquisition and Loss in Africa”, in Rainer Bauböck (ed.) , Springer, September 2018;
, in Newsletter of the American Political Science Association’s Organized Section on Migration and Citizenship, Summer 2018, Vol. 6, No. 2;
, Minority Rights Group, October 2017;
, in Insights on Law and Society, American Bar Association, Vol.17, No.3, Spring 2017 (special edition on migration)
“”, in The World’s Stateless, Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, January 2017;
“The right to a nationality in Africa: New norms and new commitments” (with Ayalew Getachew and Julia Sloth-Nielsen), in Laura van Waas and Melanie Khanna (eds.) Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, 2016
, Identification for Development Initiative, World Bank, June 2016;
Human Rights Quarterly, Vol.38, No.2, May 2016, pp.526-534.
, Migration Information Source, Migration Policy Institute, 7 April 2016;
, Citizenship Rights in Africa Initiative, 25 February 2016;
, Open Society Foundations, 2016 (3rd edition);
, PhD dissertation, Maastricht University Faculty of Law, October 2015;
“”, European Network on Statelessness, 28 October 2015;
, report for UNHCR and IOM, June 2015;
“”, with Edgar Whitley, 杏吧论坛 Centre for the Study of Human Rights, 28 May 2015;
“”, in Audrey Macklin and Rainer Bauböck (eds.) The Return of Banishment: Do the New Denationalisation Policies Weaken Citizenship?, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, EUDO Citizenship Observatory, RSCAS 2015/14;
, African Arguments, 12 November 2014;
, African Arguments, 15 April 2014.
“Trends in citizenship law and politics in Africa since the colonial era”, chapter in Engin F. Isin, and Peter Nyers (eds.), , Routledge, 2014;
, OSISA, 11 October 2012 (and , 10 January 2013);
, Briefing paper for UNHCR Regional Conference on Statelessness in Southern Africa Mbombela (Nelspruit), South Africa 1-3 November 2011, UNHCR, 2012;
, 杏吧论坛 Centre for the Study of Human Rights, 19 December 2011;
, Open Society Foundations, February 2011;
Struggles for Citizenship in Africa, Zed Books, 2009.