KM Rakibul Islam

KM Rakibul Islam is a socio-legal researcher and lawyer, and the Executive Director of ASCEND. He is a doctoral fellow in Sociology of State, Law and Justice at the Centre for Social Studies (CES), University of Coimbra, Portugal, supervised by Professor Pedro Góis and funded by a doctoral scholarship from the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT). He is an Advocate of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh and a Senior Lecturer in Law at Green University of Bangladesh, now on study leave.

His research examines migration governance, labour exploitation and legal exclusion, and the use of algorithmic and automated decision-making at Europe’s digital borders. His doctoral project studies how law, populist discourse and everyday governance shape the lives of South Asian agricultural workers in rural Portugal, with fieldwork in Odemira and Almeirim. Over some six years of fieldwork in Sweden, Spain and Portugal he has conducted around two hundred in-depth interviews. His first journal article introduced the concept of “psychological governance” to explain police-protected labour trafficking in Portuguese agriculture.

Alongside research, he has given pro bono legal help to vulnerable migrants in eight European countries. He writes in Bangla and English, as a poet and essayist as well as a scholar, and is the author of a series of Bangla books that explain the law of Bangladesh to ordinary readers through stories.

Current positions

• Executive Director and founding member, ASCEND (Asian Socio-Legal Centre for Empirical and Doctrinal Research), Dhaka
• Doctoral Fellow, Sociology of State, Law and Justice, Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, Portugal
• Guest Researcher, Centre for Migration Law, Radboud University, the Netherlands
• Research Fellow, International Institute for the Sociology of Law (IISL), Oñati, Spain
• Advocate, Supreme Court of Bangladesh
• Senior Lecturer in Law, Green University of Bangladesh (on study leave)

He has also held research fellowships at socio-legal institutions in France, Italy, Greece, Malta and Germany.

Research interests

• Migration governance and labour exploitation
• Algorithmic and automated decision-making in migration and asylum; digital borders
• Refugee, human rights and constitutional law
• Socio-legal and empirical methods: ethnography, interviews, critical discourse analysis

Education

• PhD candidate, Sociology of State, Law and Justice, University of Coimbra, Portugal (in progress)
• Master’s in Sociology of Law, Lund University, Sweden (2021). Thesis: “The informal tactics of the Bangladeshi student migrant restaurant workers in Sweden: crime or survival strategies?”
• LLM in Constitutional Law and Human Rights, Umeå University, Sweden (2019). Thesis on systematic discrimination against women in employment in Bangladesh
• LLM in International Environmental Law, Stockholm University, Sweden
• LLB (Hons), University of London
• LLM, University of Dhaka (2011). Thesis: “Expanding the United Nations: Assessing the Implications and Pathways for Inclusion of Additional States”
• LLB (Hons), University of Dhaka
• School: Barisal Cadet College

Scholarships and awards

• FCT Doctoral Scholarship, Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal (2025)
• Fundação Oriente Doctoral Scholarship, Portugal (2025)
• Dean’s Award for an outstanding research monograph, University of Dhaka (2011)

Research projects

• Doctoral project on law, populist discourse and governance in the lives of South Asian agricultural migrant workers in Portugal (CES, University of Coimbra)
• Co-Principal Investigator, “Reintegrating Dignity” (2025), on Bangladeshi women migrants returning from the United Arab Emirates, funded by the Bangladesh Forum on South Asian Insights (BFSAI)
• PhD Student Fellow, “Beyond Borders Beneath Roofs” (2024), on racialised housing discrimination against South Asian migrants in Portugal
• Convener and moderator, ASCEND roundtable conference “Cheaper Than a Man: Child Recruitment, Adult Impunity and the Unintended Price of Protection in Dhaka”, University of Dhaka and online, 1 October 2026

Publications

Journal article

• Islam, KM Rakibul (2026) Uniformed Exploitation: Psychological Governance and Police-Protected Labor Trafficking in Portuguese Agriculture. Journal of International Migration and Integration (Springer). doi:10.1007/s12134-026-01394-x

Books in Bangla

• প্রমাণের ভাষা: সাক্ষ্য আইন, ১৮৭২-এর সহজ পাঠ, with Md Rezaul Karim Shohag (ASCEND Publication, forthcoming)
• সবার জন্য সংবিধান: গল্পে গল্পে নাগরিক অধিকার, মর্যাদা ও ইনসাফের কথা (with publishers)
• সত্যি বলা যথেষ্ট নয়, a story book on the Evidence Act 1872, with Md Rezaul Karim Shohag (with publishers)
• অপরাধের ব্যাকরণ: গল্পে গল্পে দণ্ডবিধি, ১৮৬০, with Md Rezaul Karim Shohag (in preparation)

Research articles

His research articles are listed by title on Our research works.

Teaching

• Senior Lecturer in Law, Green University of Bangladesh, including Master of Laws courses
• Visiting faculty, Manarat International University and International Islamic University Chittagong
• Guest teaching at universities in Bangladesh and the European Union

Editorial work and peer review

• Peer reviewer, Journal of International Migration and Integration (Springer)
• Assistant Editor, Green University Review of Social Sciences (2016 to 2018)

Presentations

He has presented his research at conferences and universities in Bangladesh, Sweden, Portugal and the United Kingdom.

Languages

Bangla (mother tongue), English (C2), Swedish (B2), Urdu, Hindi, Nepali and Assamese.