Adolfo SOMMARRIBAS

Adolfo Sommarribas graduated in Law (Licenciatura en Derecho, equivalent to a JD) and as a Notary Public at the University of Costa Rica in 1988. He obtained a Master in Laws (L.L.M) from the University of Michigan Law School after being awarded a Fullbright Scholarship. In 2015, he obtained a Diploma in Luxembourg Taxation.

He worked as a researcher at the Center of the Administration of Justice of Florida international University in different countries in Latin America from 1986 until 1989 and as a lawyer in different countries until he joined the University of Luxembourg in 2011 as legal migration expert for the Luxembourg National Contact Point of the European Migration Network (EMN). Actually, he is senior legal advisor (in projects) of the University of Luxembourg.

He is senior legal advisor of the Luxembourg national contact point of FRANET, since its establishment at the University of Luxembourg in 2018.

In the EMN at the European level, he was codeveloper of the EMN ad-hoc queries tool in 2013 after being appointed co-chair of the Ad-hoc query Working Group post that he still holds guaranteeing the quality of the exchange of information between Member States and the European Union. He is also in charge of the coordination with other EU agencies and network (i.e. EASO, GDISC and IGC) to avoid duplication and exchange of information.

He was appointed coordinator of the EMN Platform of Statelessness since 2016. Since its appointment it has produced outputs such as the EMN Inform “Statelessness in the EU” (2016, 2020, 2023), organizing events for stakeholders such as technical workshops, trainings and conferences with the collaboration of international organisations (e.g. UNHCR, UNICEF) and EU NGOs(e.g. ENS) to raise awareness on statelessness.

He organizes in the context of EMN Luxembourg annual meetings such as the Workshop of Representatives of Detention Centres in the European Union and assimilated countries, Forecasting in migration management and Children in migration.

He has been expert for the Luxembourgish government during the Luxembourgish presidencies of the Benelux (2016 and 2019) on trafficking in human beings and had contribute to create an information brochure that is being used to inform potential victims and also to assist practitioners in the field.

He had participated in the drafting of the Luxembourg national report SOPEMI for the OECD (2015, 2016, 2017, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023). He has participated in international meeting of the OECD representing Luxembourg in Europe and Asia.

He has also been involved in the development of the EMN Inform on Detecting Document Fraud and is in charge of organize technical events with practitioners to see the trends and new technological developments in the field. He is also invited as external expert to the Europol Doc Fraud Working Party and had participate in several conferences as speaker at EUROPOL and the European Council on the subject.

He worked with the European Commission and EU NGOs in the development of informs on missing unaccompanied minors in the EU and children on migration during 2020 as well as on the effects of the Covid-19 in legal migration jointly with EMN NCPs, EU agencies and OECD.

He was in charge of the autoevaluation of the national programme of the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+) regarding the compliance of the national programme with the provisions of the European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights. His work was greatly appreciated by the Ministry of Labour that he was appointed as member of the monitoring committee of the national programme of the ESF+ for the period 2021 – 2027, and he is in charge of managing the complaint mechanism of this programme. He was also appointed member of the monitoring committee of the national programmes of the AMIF (Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund), the ISF (Internal Security Fund) and the BVMI (Borders and Visa managing instrument) for the period 2021-2027 by the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs.

He is member of the University Council of the University of Luxembourg representing the administrative, financial and technical staff since November 2018, being reelected in 2023.