Susan Akram
Profiles

Susan M Akram, JD

Clinical Associate Professor, Health Law, Policy & Management - Boston University School of Public Health

(617) 358-2047
sakram@gbls.org
Talbot
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Biography

Professor Susan Akram directs BU Law’s International Human Rights Clinic, in which she supervises students engaged in international advocacy in domestic, international, regional, and UN fora. Her research and publications focus on immigration, asylum, refugee, forced migration and human and civil rights issues, with an interest in the Middle East, the Arab, and Muslim world.

Akram's distinguished research was recognized with a Fulbright Senior Scholar Teaching and Research Award for the 1999–2000 academic year. She has lectured on Palestinian refugees to general audiences around the world as well as to committees of the United Nations (including the High Commission for Refugees and the Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees), the European Union, and representatives of European and Canadian government ministries and parliaments. Since September 11, 2001 she has presented widely on the USA Patriot Act and immigration-related laws and policies as well as on her work challenging standard interpretations of women’s asylum claims from the Arab/Muslim world.

With her clinic students as well as in collaboration with other legal organizations, Akram has worked on resettlement and refugee claims of Guantanamo detainees, and has been co-counsel on a number of high profile cases, including the 20+-year litigation of a case of first impression on the interpretation of one of the exclusion bars to asylum, In Re A-H-. She has taught at the American University in Cairo, Egypt and at Al-Quds and Birzeit Universities in Palestine. She regularly teaches in the summer institute on forced migration at the Refugee Studies Centre at Oxford University, and in various venues in the Middle East on refugee law.

Other Positions

  • Clinical Professor and Supervising Attorney, International Human Rights Program - Boston University School of Law

Education

  • Georgetown University Law Center, JD
  • Oxford University, MSt Field of Study: International Human Rights Law
  • University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, BA Field of Study: Political Science/Asian Studies

Websites

Publications

  • Published on 3/1/2015

    Akram S. Abandoned Yet Central: Gaza and the Resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Journal of Palestine Studies. Operation Protective Edge, and Why Getting the Law Right Matters. 2015.
  • Published on 1/1/2015

    Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency & Refugee Rights (Susan Akram and Nidal Al-Azza, Eds.). Closing Protection Gaps: Handbook on Protection of Palestinian Refugees in States Signatories to the 1951 Convention. 2015.
  • Published on 1/1/2015

    Susan Akram. Protecting Syrian Refugees: Laws, Policies, and Global Responsibility Sharing. Middle East Law and Governance. 2015; 7(287).
  • Published on 1/1/2014

    Akram SM. Still Waiting for Tomorrow: The Law and Politics of Unresolved Refugee Crises (Syring T, ed.). Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2014.
  • Published on 1/1/2013

    Akram SM. Palestine and the Palestinians in the Twenty-First Century (Davis R, Kirk M, Eds.). The Legal Trajectory of the Palestinian Refugee Issue: From Exclusion to Ambiguity. Indiana University Press. 2013.
  • Published on 1/1/2013

    Akram SM. The Failure of the Two-State Solution: Prospects of One State in the Israel-Palestine Conflict (Faris H, Ed.). The Rights of Palestinian Refugees and Territorial Solutions in Historic Palestine. I.B. Tauris Publishers. 2013.
  • Published on 1/1/2012

    Akram SM, Lynk m. Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (Wolfrum R, Ed.). The Arab Israel Conflict. Oxford University Press. 2012.
  • Published on 1/1/2010

    International Law and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: A Rights-Based Approach to Middle East Peace (Akram, Dumper, Lynk and Scobbie, Eds.). Routledge Publishers. 2010.
  • Published on 1/1/2010

    Akram, SM. The Dynamics of Constitutionalism in the Age of Globalisation (Frishman, Muller, eds.). Do Constitutions Make a Difference in the Protection of Fundamental Human Rights? Comparing the United States and Israel. Hague Academic Press. 2010.
  • Published on 1/1/2010

    Akram SM. Encyclopedia of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (Rubenberg C, Ed.). Palestinian Refugees and the Right of Return. Lynne Rienner. 2010.

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