Efrat Arbel is Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia Peter A. Allard School of Law. She publishes and teaches in refugee law, prison law, constitutional law, and tort law. Her primary research examines how legal rights are negotiated and defined in liminal legal spaces like the border, the detention center, and the prison.

Dr. Arbel earned her doctorate at Harvard Law School in 2012, where she recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, and was named Canada Research Fellow with Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. She holds a BA from McGill University, a JD from UBC, and completed her LLM studies at Harvard Law School before proceeding with her doctorate. Throughout her graduate studies, Dr. Arbel held positions as a teaching and research fellow at Harvard Law School; as a research fellow at the Kennedy School of Government; and as a researcher with the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Law Clinic. She held a postdoctoral appointment at the University of British Columbia between 2012-2014, with visiting terms at the Oxford Center for Criminology (2013) and the European University Institute (2014).

Combining her academic work with legal practice, Dr. Arbel is engaged in advocacy and litigation involving refugee and prisoner rights. She has served on subcommittees with Westcoast LEAF, and on the executive of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers. She provides expert opinions for, and engages in consultations with, various government agencies. She is also a frequent media commentator on refugee and prison issues, and has been cited by numerous media outlets, including The Globe and Mail, National Post, and The New York Times.