Sara Dezalay is Professor (enseignante-chercheuse HDR) at ESPOL. Prior to joining the School, she was a Reader at the Cardiff School of Law and Politics, Cardiff University.
She is also an Associate researcher at the Institut des Mondes Africains (IMAF); member of the editorial committee of Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales ; Associate editor of Law & Social Inquiry ; and member of the International Affairs Committee, Law and Society Association.
In 2020-2022, she was an adjunct judge, appointed by the UNHCR, at the Cour nationale du droit d’asile (French national court for asylum seekers).
She holds a PhD in Laws from the European University Institute.
Sara Dezalay’s current research focuses on the roles played by law and lawyers in negotiating and justifying the uneven and unequal relationship between the African South and the world economy. Deploying a research strategy combining political sociology of law and global history, she adopts a multi-scalar approach, examining dynamics of legal, social and political change at the domestic level (in Burundi, the DRC, Côte d’Ivoire) and on the international scene (politics and practices of intervention; international dispute settlement mechanisms; transnational advocacy; transnational litigation strategies).
In 2022-2024 she is also the co-PI, with Sharon Weill (American University of Paris), of a 30,000 Euro grant by the Mission droit et justice (French Justice Ministry) to conduct a multi-disciplinary and comparative study of asylum justice in France, Greece and the UK.