Sanjula Weerasinghe

Sanjula Weerasinghe is a Laureate Postdoctoral Fellow at the Evacuations Research Hub, Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW Sydney. For close to two decades, Sanjula has worked at the intersection of policy, practice and research on migration and displacement, with UN agencies, international organizations, think tanks, academic institutions and NGOs in Geneva, Washington, D.C., Hong Kong and Bangkok. At the Hub, her work focuses on evacuations, relocation and solutions to displacement, with a particular emphasis on ensuring that research insights inform and shape international policy and practice.

Most recently, she served as the Global Coordinator on Migration and Displacement at the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in Geneva. Prior to that, she held specialist positions with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the Secretariat of the state-led Migrants in Countries in Crisis Initiative, and the UN Network on Migration. Earlier in her career, she directed legal aid centres and provided legal advice to refugees and asylum seekers in Hong Kong and Thailand. She began her professional career as a solicitor at King & Wood Mallesons, then Mallesons Stephen Jaques.

She has authored numerous articles and reports on migration and displacement, with a particular focus on disasters, climate change, and humanitarian crises. She has drafted (or co-drafted) normative guidance and policy documents, including the UN Secretary-General’s 2022 report on the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, the UN Secretary-General's recommendations on saving lives and missing migrants, the Migrants in Countries in Crisis Initiative Guidelines, and guidance on planned relocation. She convened the Refugee Law Initiative’s first module on climate change, disasters and displacement for the University of London’s MA in Refugee Protection.

Sanjula is a member of the Advisory Committee of the Platform on Disaster Displacement, a Non-Resident Fellow at the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University, and an Affiliate of the Refugee Law Initiative at the University of London. She holds an LLB (Hons) from Monash University and an LLM (Dist.) from Georgetown University, where she also completed a Certificate in Refugees and Humanitarian Emergencies. She is admitted to practise as an Australian lawyer in the Supreme Court of Victoria.