Elizabeth G. Ferris

Who is Elizabeth G. Ferris?

Elizabeth G. Ferris is a senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. and serves as the co-director of the Brookings-LSE Project on Internal Displacement. In addition to her positions within the Brookings Institution, Ferris is an adjunct associate professor in Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. She is also a commissioner of the Women's Refugee Commission, a distinguished author and a lifelong humanitarian.

Ferris’ work encompasses a wide range of issues related to human rights, forced migration, humanitarian action, the role of civil society in protecting displaced populations and the security implications of displacement. In her latest book, The Politics of Protection: The Limits of Humanitarian Action, Ferris examines inconsistent ways in which protection is defined and applied. She argues that the protection paradigms currently in use are inadequate to meet the challenges of the future, such as climate change, protracted displacement, and the changing nature of warfare.

The Brookings-LSE Project on Internal Displacement, established in 1994, is co-directed by Dr. Elizabeth Ferris and Dr. Chaloka Beyani, the current UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons. The goal of the project is to develop global and regional normative standards on internal displacement, to support governments, civil society and international actors in their work with internally displaced persons, and to carry out independent research on situations of internal displacement.