Birte Schorpion is a Senior Policy and Advocacy Advisor at the Danish Refugee Council, an International Non-Governmental Organisation (INGO) providing principled humanitarian assistance to displacement and conflict affected populations in more than 40 countries, and a teaching assistant to professor Ellen Desmet in the course European and International Migration Law and Policy. At Ghent University, Birte also successfully coached the faculty’s team that won the International Migration and Refuge Law Moot Court, both the written submissions and oral pleading sessions, after having competed against teams from different corners of the world and renowned universities. And previously, Birte also supervised a team from the legal clinic on migration law.
Birte studied law in Leuven and Madrid, and did her bachelor with a minor in political science. She moved to the United Kingdom to complete an LLM in Immigration Law at Queen Mary University of London. During her time in England’s capital, Birte assisted the policy analyst of the House of Lords’ EU Subcommittee with a comprehensive inquiry on unaccompanied children in the European Union and she interned at UN Refugee Agency’s (UNHCR) protection team.
Birte, in her role as policy officer at the Danish Refugee Council, focuses on the proposed EU Pact on Asylum and Migration, and scrutiny of European legislation and proposals relevant to the Danish Refugee Council’s humanitarian operations. Birte has among other topics been leading DRC’s advocacy work on pushbacks and human rights violations at EU borders. As part of the liaison office between the EU institutions and her colleagues in the field, Birte also represents the organisation’s positions, advocates for the rights of displaced people and increases awareness on the challenges faced by migrants and refugees in countries of origin, transit or destination where the Danish Refugee Council provides humanitarian assistance. Since her start with Danish Refugee Council in March 2017, Birte has been on multiple short term field missions, including Iraq, Türkiye, and Bosnia-and-Herzegovina, and she has further been internally seconded to the Middle East and Europe Regional Office.
