About Simon Weldehaimanot

Originally from the small East African state of Eritrea, Attorney Simon (Eritreans always go by their first name) entered immigration law practice after some spell of research and non-profit assistance to refugees and asylees. In the past six years, Simon has actively followed the challenges Eritrean asylum seekers and refugees face. In 2007 Simon published “Guide to Eritrean Asylum Seekers: Compilation of Cases”– an e-book that compiled key rulings of tribunals of major destination countries on application for asylum from Eritreans.

In his “The Right to Leave and It’s Ramifications in Eritrea”– a publication of the East African Journal of Peace & Human Rights – Simon tells how almost impossible it is to exit Eritrea legally; and, once citizens have left dodging bullets, deportation or even voluntary return exposes returnees to cruel treatments that amount to persecution. So severe is the level of repression in his home country that citizens are compelled to leave the State at any cost while the State, embarrassed by the exodus, seals its borders with border guards instructed to “shoot to kill” citizens attempting to flee. 

In his recent work produced in collaboration with Release Eritrea and Eritrean Law Society, Simon highlights the available, albeit inadequate, legal remedies to the sad situation of “Kidnapping, Hostage-Taking and Ransoming of Eritrean Asylum Seekers in the Sinai Desert”.

On the other side, in his “Eritrea’s Diaspora in Regional Peace and Human Rights” – a publication of the East African Journal of Peace & Human Rights – Simon also advises asylees and refugees of their obligation to abide by the fundamental values of their democratic host States and not to contribute in any way to the sustenance of repression from which they had fled. Doing so is not only apparently immoral but could also jeopardize their status in the host States. Simon would like to see that asylees and refugees know the constitutional values that have made their new homes safe haven and the lack of the same values in their countries of origin rendering the latter unlivable. Occasionally, Simon thus volunteers as an instructor of citizenship classes at non-profit organizations such the International Rescue Committee that prepare permanent residents for naturalization, stressing the fact that becoming a citizen of America requires embracing some fundamental democratic values.

Attorney Simon also teaches part time a “Global Justice” course at the Arizona State University where immigration features prominently as a global moral issue. Previously, Simon has taught some courses such as Introduction to Socio-legal Concepts and Methods of Social Science Research at the Women’s College of the University of Denver.

Simon was educated by excellent academic institutions. Simon earned with distinction an LLB degree in law from the University of Asmara in 2003. Thereafter for two years he worked as an in-house counsel for a governmental agency in Eritrea in charge of coordinating public construction companies. From January to December 2006, Simon attended an LLM course in human rights and democratization offered by the distinguished Centre for Human Rights at the University of Pretoria’s Faculty of Law. During his attendance the LLM program was awarded UNESCO’s prize for best education of its kind. After working in the human rights field for about three years, from 2009 to 2012 Simon attended a study for a JSD in international human rights law at the Notre Dame Law School to further his understanding of civil and human rights law.

At graduate schools and during the vocational times in between, Simon has been active with maters of human rights with particular focus on refugees and asylum seekers. After completion of his LLM in December 2006, Simon worked for about six months as a contract researcher at the Centre for Human Rights producing, in collaboration with other colleagues, a publication on Eritrea’s “Constitutional, Legislative and Administrative Provisions Concerning Indigenous Peoples”.

Subsequently and up to January 2009, Simon worked as a Third Millennium Foundation Human Rights Fellow of the Institute for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University in New York City. Under the first part of the fellowship, Simon worked for the Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa (Banjul, Gambia) and actively engaged with the human rights tribunals of Africa both as an advocate and as an academic as shown by his two publications – “Towards Speedy Trials: Reforming the Practice of Adjudicating Cases in the African Human Rights System” on the University for Peace Law Review and “Unlocking the African Court of Justice and Human Rights” on the Journal of African and International Law. Simon also contributed a paper – “The Eritrean Journalists’ Case before the African Commission” – to the Eritrean Law Society Occasional Papers (ELSOP). It is also since this time that Simon started working on the challenges Eritrean asylum seekers and refugees face and produced the various publication mentioned above.

As a member of the Eritrean Law Society, Simon also tries to play a role in engaging the society to help build “The Undermined Law Society and Legal Profession in Eritrea” – a sad reality that he presents in his article on the International Journal of Civil Society Law. Simon has been the editor of and contributed many papers to the Eritrean Law Society Occasional Papers. He has compiled all Eritrean laws, including centuries old customary laws. Now that Eritreans find themselves in many parts of the world, in many instances Simon is asked to provide legal opinion on how a certain matter (affiliation, succession, validity of marriage or divorce … etc) would be disposed under Eritrean laws.

With colleagues at the Eritrean Law Society, Simon continues to address the sad status of the rule of law in Eritrea in his many publications which include “ The Status and Fate of the Eritrean Constitution” on the African Human Rights Law Journal; “The Nebulous Lawmaking Process in Eritrea” on the Journal of African Law; “African Law of Coups and the Situation in Eritrea: A Test for the African Union’s Commitment to Democracy” on the Journal of African Law and “The Constitution as a Broken Promise” on the Eritrean Law Society Occasional Papers.

Simon’s research and advocacy on his area of interest have also appeared on other law journals including on Sur – International Journal on Human Rights and on Australian Indigenous Law Review. Simon has also published on other issues including on the African Journal of International and Comparative Law and on the Review of African Political Economy. Most of Simon’s unpublished papers are available on his SSRN webpage.