Adolfo
Sommerribas
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.
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 is the liaison between the Financial Unit of the European Commission and the EMN National Contact Points providing training and developing tools for the submission of the grants.
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 and 2020), 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 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)
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 has been involved 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 participates as legal advisor for the FRANET Luxembourg since its establishment at the University of Luxembourg.
He is member of the University Council of the University of Luxembourg since November 2018.