Short Bio
Melina Riemer studied law at the University of Münster (Germany) and Aalborg University (Denmark) with a specialisation in public international law, and holds a Master of Laws (LL.M.) in public international law with a specialisation in human rights from Utrecht University (Netherlands). From spring 2023 to 2025, she was a legal trainee at the High Court of Berlin (Kammergericht Berlin), and worked in a law firm specialised in migration law as well as for the Border Justice team of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR). Since May 2025, she works as a research assistant for Prof. Dr. Grażyna Baranowksa at her Chair for Migration Law and Human Rights at FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg, where she also teaches at the Law Faculty. Melina does interdisciplinary research at the intersection of human rights and migration law. Her work focuses on European human rights protection, European migration law, human rights theory, democratic theory and critical perspectives on international law.
Melina’s doctoral research project has the working title “The democratic nation state between universality and exclusion: The doctrine of states’ right to migration control in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights”. It is an interdisciplinary project at the intersection of law and political theory. It focuses on the European Court of Human Rights’ doctrine of states’ sovereign right to migration control, and connects human rights theory and democratic theory with a critical doctrinal and normative analysis of the migration jurisprudence of the Court.
- Kienzle and Riemer, ‘Evidencing Pushbacks in Light of a Systematic Practice: ARE v Greece (App. No.15783/21) and GRJ v Greece (App. No.15067/21)’, (2025) European Human Rights Law Review (4), 506-514, Link: https://www.mr2.rw.fau.de/files/2025/10/Evidencing-Pushbacks-in-Light-of-a-Systematic-Practice-ARE-v-Greece-App.-No.1578321-and-GRJ-v-Greece-App.-No.1506721.pdf
- Kienzle and Riemer, ‘Feeble Recognition of a Systematic Pushback Practice: The latest ECtHR rulings on Greek pushback cases’, (2025) Verfassungsblog, Link: https://verfassungsblog.de/pushbacks-echr-greece-turkiye/