Attorney | Athens, Greece

Mr. Asanakis, a partner in the Antapassis, Albouras, Asanakis Law Office, has a strong record in supporting human rights.

He is currently president of the Imvrian Association, an organization with 5,000 registered members that is active in the campaign for minority rights of the Greek population of the Turkish islands of Imvros and Tenedos on an international level as well as in the on-going social dialogue between the EU-Turkey, Greece-Turkey and within Turkey itself. This dialogue has resulted in a number of specific results including the continuous references to the matter made by the European Commission and the European Parliament in their respective progress reports on Turkey since 2004 and Resolution 1625 (2008) on Imvros and Tenedos adopted by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the reopening of a Greek minority school for the first time since 1964.

Born in Istanbul in 1965, Mr. Asanakis is of Greek/Turkish nationality. He received his first degree in law in 1987 from the Athens National Kapodistrias University. In 1989, he received his LLM degree from the Universite Libre de Bruxelles (Institut d’Etudes Europe’ennes).

He is a regular civil society interlocutor of DG Enlargement of the European Commission, Commissioner of Human Rights of the Council of Europe, United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, Greek Parliament (Committee of Hellens Abroad), and the Turkish National Assembly (External Affairs Committee).

His field of expertise is shipping and aviation law, shipping and aircraft finance, commercial law, competition law, EC law and human rights law, investment and banking, intellectual property and construction law. Acting as legal counsel, he played a key role in the release of the “Karachi 8” (the seven Greek crewmembers of the m.v. “Tasman Spirit” and a salvage master) from Pakistan in 2008.