Dr Aleksandra Ancite-Jepifánova is an interdisciplinary scholar and consultant working in the field of migration, asylum and nationality law and policies. She is currently a Research Associate at King’s Legal Clinic where she is conducting a study on refugee family reunion in the UK. She is also a Research Affiliate with the Refugee Law Initiative, University of London, and Central European University’s Democracy Institute.

Aleksandra’s work combines doctrinal and empirical research methods by particularly focusing on family reunification and access to international protection. She has published extensively in these areas, including a monograph The Concept of Marriages of Convenience in EU Free Movement Law: EU and UK Perspectives (Brill, 2024). She is currently working on her second book, Rethinking Migrant Instrumentalisation: Law and Politics of Refugee Exclusion at the EU Border with Belarus and Russia.

Aleksandra holds a PhD in Law from Queen Mary University of London. Before joining King’s, she taught EU law at London School of Economics and held research fellowships and appointments at numerous institutions, including Forum Transregionale Studien (Berlin), Amsterdam Centre for Migration and Refugee Law at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Centre of Law and Society at Cardiff University, and CEU Democracy Institute (Rule of Law Clinic).

Aleksandra’s work is strongly impact-driven. She has extensive experience interviewing people in migration-related contexts and has worked as a consultant for various international organisations. On behalf of CEU Rule of Law Clinic, she has prepared third party interventions before the European Court of Human Rights in cases involving protection seekers who have attempted to enter the EU from Belarus.

Aleksandra came to academia via an unconventional route, having first worked for nearly 15 years in journalism. Alongside her PhD research in the UK, she was based in in Bonn where she worked for Germany’s international broadcaster Deutsche Welle.

Research interests 

Aleksandra’s research lies at the broad intersection of migration and refugee law, conflict, and human rights in geographically diverse contexts and jurisdictions. Specific topics of her interest include:

•  Family reunification in EU and UK law
• EU-Belarus border crisis and the concept of migrant instrumentalisation
• The position of Yezidi genocide survivors in Germany and Iraq
• Developments in EU, Russian and Ukrainian migration and citizenship regimes following the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Selected publications 

Ancite-Jepifánova, A. (2024), The Concept of Marriages of Convenience in EU Free Movement Law: EU and UK Perspectives (Brill | Nijhoff). 

Ancite-Jepifánova, A. (2025), From the EU-Belarus Border to Strasbourg: The Cases on ‘Migrant Instrumentalisation’ Before the ECtHR, Verfassungsblog. 

Ancite-Jepifánova, A. (2024), Beyond the ‘Hybrid Threat’ Paradigm: EU-Belarus Border Crisis and the Erosion of Asylum-Seeker Rights in Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, Avant: Trends in Interdisciplinary Studies 15(2). 

Ancite-Jepifánova, A. (2024), Your Relationship is Genuine, But Your Marriage is Not. Defining Marriages of Convenience in EU and UK Law in Ellen Desmet et.al. (eds.), Family Reunification in Europe: Exposing Inequalities (Routledge). 

Ganty, S., Ancite-Jepifánova, A. and Kochenov, D. (2024), EU Lawlessness Law at the EU-Belarusian Border: Torture and Dehumanisation Excused by ‘Instrumentalisation’, The Hague Journal on the Rule of Law 16: 739–774. 

Ancite-Jepifánova, A. (2023), Migrant Instrumentalisation: Facts and Fictions. Realities On the Ground at the EU-Belarus Border, Verfassungsblog.