Our team

Dr. Omer Shatz is co-founder and co-director of front-LEX. He leads a team focused on strategic litigation against EU States and officials before the ECtHR and the ICC. A Yale Law School graduate, he is also a lecturer in International Law at Sciences Po and listed as ICC Lead Counsel.

In Israel\Palestine, he co-founded a law firm that specialized in Supreme Court litigation of high-profile human rights matters. He co-founded “We Are Refugees”, an NGO that provided pro-bono representation to detained asylees. In France, he was a senior associate at the international law firm Shearman & Sterling LLP.

Iftach Cohen is co-founder and co-director of Front-LEX, where he leads the legal team focused on strategic litigation before the CJEU against EU institutions and bodies – Frontex, Europol, and the European Commission.

Before Front-LEX, he led an innovative legal aid project in Sicily providing legal information to asylum seekers in the immediate surroundings of the hotspots and was part of an international expert team deployed by EASO at the CTRPI Roma. In Israel/Palestine, he co-founded a law firm specializing in human rights litigation, as well as We Are Refugees, an NGO providing pro bono legal representation to detained asylum seekers.

An advocacy officer at front-LEX, Josephine is a communications and research freelancer. She also works at the Transnational Institute, researching border regimes and exposing the corporations that profit from them. She holds an MA with distinction in Development Studies from the International Institute of Social Studies and a BA in Philosophy and Economics from the University of Bayreuth.

Romain Lanneau is working at the intersection of migration, asylum, and digital rights in public policy. He works at Front-LEX as a legal advisor on strategic litigation against EU institutions and bodies, to defend human rights at Europe’s border.

He conducts research on policing, surveillance technologies, data protection, and European migration and asylum policies. He has authored multiple reports and investigations; his work featured in European and International press and worked with organisations including Statewatch, European Network Against Racism, Fair Trials International, and Data Rights.

Dr. Spyridoula Katsoni, Attorney-at-Law (the Athens Bar Association), is a Legal Adviser at front-LEX. She is a Senior Researcher and Lecturer at Ruhr University Bochum (IFHV), Convener of the ESIL Interest Group on Migration and Refugee Law, and Editor-in-Chief and Innovation Officer at Völkerrechtsblog.

Samantha Rodríguez Santillán is a human rights lawyer, registered in Mexico, focusing on cases involving serious human rights violations and crimes against humanity. She holds an LL.B. and a postgraduate degree in Public International Law from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, and is currently completing a Master’s in Human Rights and Humanitarian Action at Sciences Po.

She has experience working with UN treaty bodies, the Inter-American human rights system, and domestic courts. At Front-Lex, she works as a member of the International Criminal Law team.

A legal adviser at front-LEX, Francesco is assistant Professor in EU Law and Migration Law at the University of Palermo (Italy). He is also Research Fellow in EU and International Migration Law at the Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium) and Visiting Professor at the Riga Graduate School of Law (Latvia), where he teaches EU Law and Migration and Asylum Law. He has been working in European institutions, such as the European Parliament, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights.

Taceo Lenfant completed his Master’s in Human Rights and Humanitarian Action (cum laude) from Sciences Po Paris. Previously, he interned at the International Law and Human Rights section of the law firm Prakken d’Oliveira in Amsterdam. He also holds a double bachelor’s degree in Law from the University of Amsterdam and in Social Sciences (cum laude) from Amsterdam University College.

Dr. Chiara Amitrano is an International Criminal Lawyer, registered in the Bar of Rome (Italy), and Project Manager for front-LEX, and a Human Rights Lawyer for Strali for strategic litigation. She holds an LL.M. in Transnational Crime and Justice from UNICRI and volunteers for Antigone’s Ombudsman for persons in detention. She is specialised in migration and detention-related strategic litigation at the national and international level.

Anne Sapir serves as Treasurer on front-LEX Board. She is a migration and refugee law expert with over a decade of experience across Europe and the Middle East. She has led humanitarian and legal programmes, advised on protection and legal pathways, and works at the intersection of strategic litigation, policy, and accountability.

As founder and director of ExilAktion (2018), I work to defend the rights of young people in exile in Switzerland. We oppose violations of children’s rights, especially cases where minors are declared adults, and challenge transfers of vulnerable people under Dublin regulations to unsafe countries. ExilAktion provides guidance, support and integration.

Meron Estefanos is a Swedish/Eritrean journalist, researcher, also an inspiring human rights advocate and campaigner. She has a humble beginning into activism who end up saving tenth of thousands of Eritreans victims of smuggling and trafficking.

René Lehnherr, originally from Basel and living in Amsterdam for nearly 30 years, was born in 1954 and has been advocating for refugees on many levels for over 50 years. He is also the initiator of the international Monsanto Tribunal, which took place in 2016 in The Hague. This was a civil society tribunal in which five judges from five continents examined the American seed company Monsanto for alleged criminal conduct, based on testimonies from 30 witnesses.

After a aborted study of geography I worked in different branches of traditional craft and ended up becoming a carpenter.

In 2015 responding to the administrative crises of managing refugees arriving in Germany I got into working with refugees via different organisations including the one I was doing child- and youth work during school and many years after.

For a few years now I started focusing on managing my heir – especially shares of Vorwerk and the dividends – in a way that hopefully serves society.

Born on November 30, 1956, in Bad Saarow-Pieskow, I studied padagogy and received my doctorate. I worked as a teacher for 10 years, and after reunification, as an employee in the Saxon State Parliament for the Left Party (PDS).

From 1998 to 2009, I was a member of the Saxon State Parliament and a city councilor in Dresden, then a member of the Foreigners’ Advisory Council, now of the Saxon Refugee Council. From 2009 to 2024, I was a member of the European Parliament as part of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left group, later known as The Left Group. I am currently working on an integration concept for my hometown of Dresden. I served on the Committee on Home Affairs at both the state level and in the European Parliament, where I was responsible for asylum and migration policy. After reunification, I advocated for the right of Vietnamese contract workers to stay in Germany, later for asylum seekers from Yugoslavia and Turkey. At the European level, I and my parliamentary group fought for a humane asylum system in Europe. As coordinator, I ensured that my group visited all relevant asylum policy places and publicized the situation of asylum seekers. Together with Border Violance Monitoring, our group published the so-called Black Book of Pushbacks. In the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, we ensured that the human rights violations injured by Frontex were investigated in a working committee, which contributed to the fall of Fabrice Leggeri as Frontex Director. The crucial Final Report on Frontex by the OLAF authority was made public essentially through us, as were the negotiations on the Pact on Migration and Asylum. It is an honor for me to be a member of the board.