The Concept of Vulnerability in the Context of Religious Minorities

Freedom of Religion, Minority Rights and the Law : The Status of Jewish and Muslim Minorities in Europe and Beyond / edited by Aleksandra Gliszczyńska-Grabias and Aviad Hacohen. London : Routledge, 2025, s. 78-94.

This chapter assesses the application of the concept of vulnerability to religious minorities and explores the added value of using this lens in the context of international human rights law. Specifically, it examines case law from the European Court of Human Rights and UN treaty bodies where vulnerability has been applied to cases involving religious minorities. The analysis identifies three contexts in which this occurs: the situation in the individual’s country of origin, non-refoulement cases, and cases involving discrimination or pressure from within their own religious group. The added value of vulnerability is most apparent in the third category, where it aids in evaluating the individual’s circumstances and offers an additional layer of protection. However, the analysis also highlights the challenges posed by the lack of a clear definition of vulnerability, which can result in contradictory applications of the concept.

The research conducted for this chapter has been funded by the Polish National Science Centre (Grant No. 2019/33/B/HS5/01634).

The Politics of Legal Facts : The Erasure of Pushback Evidence from the European Court of Human Rights

Law & Social Inquiry 2025, t. 50, nr 1, s. 225-248.

Współautorstwo: Alpes, Maybritt Jill

This article analyzes how the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) handles evidence of pushback, where states violently force asylum seekers away from borders. An examination of how the experiences of pushback survivors get translated (or not) into judgments contributes to theoretical discussions about truth, epistemic practices, and law. The article asks why so little of what researchers, journalists, civil society actors, and international organizations have documented about European border violence is visible in the court’s judgments. Based on a mix of legal and anthropological research methods, the article traces how states and the ECtHR erase pushback evidence at borders and during litigation. Taking seriously on equal grounds the construction of facts outside and inside a court room, the article connects external perspectives on the production of evidence with an internal analysis of evidence in judgments. In doing so, the article highlights the political dimensions of seemingly merely technical and legal procedures. We argue for a clearer separation of courts’ and states’ versions of facts, contending that the presumption of the states’ good faith should no longer apply when there is evidence, including in case law, of misrecordings and false statements by respondent states.

Protesting in defence of human rights in the time of pandemic : freedom of assembly and COVID-19

Współautorstwo: Gliszczyńska-Grabias, Aleksandra

Encountering the plague : humanities takes on the pandemic / edited by Wojciech Sowa, Tony Whyton. Bristol ; Chicago : Intellect, 2024, s. 54-67.

The Impact of the United Nations Human Rights Treaties on the Domestic Level in Poland

Współautorstwo: Sękowska-Kozłowska, Katarzyna; Grygiel-Zasada, Joanna; Szoszkiewicz, Łukasz

The Impact of the United Nations Human Rights Treaties on the Domestic Level : Twenty Years On / edited by Christof Heyns, Frans Jacobus Viljoen, and Rachel Murray. – Boston ; Leiden : Brill, 2024., s. 823–898.

As a founding member of the UN, Poland has for several decades been engaged with the treaty body system. It has accepted as binding seven of the nine core human rights treaties (cerd, ccpr, cescr, cedaw, crc, cat and crpd). The impact of these treaties and their monitoring bodies on Polish law and policies has been related to the political circumstances shaping the state’s attitude to human rights in general. Under the Communist regime, although it ratified UN treaties, Poland did so mostly for propaganda reasons, without protecting individual rights (especially civil and political rights) in practice. As a result of the democratic transition initiated in 1989, much effort was undertaken to build democratic institutions and to incorporate human rights within the state’s structure. The Constitution, which includes a comprehensive human rights catalogue, was adopted in 1997, and independent courts were established. Most provisions of UN human rights treaties have been reflected in Polish law, but a direct impact is barely visible. Aspirations to join the CoE and the EU and implementation of the regional standards certainly played the major role for advancement of human rights in Poland, whereas the UN system was relegated to a secondary role. After democratic transition, while securing political and economic stability, Poland had the chance to focus on implementing international human rights obligations. This became a missed opportunity, since no general institutional framework was established, nor any strategy to implement UN human rights treaties and the recommendations of their monitoring bodies. This situation may be attributable, at least to some extent, to the nature of the UN human rights system, based as it is on voluntary cooperation and dialogue with the state parties, without a robust enforcement mechanism. Besides this, subsequent Polish governments, regardless of the political parties in power, evaded responsibility for violations in individual cases by denying the ratification to op-crpd, op-cescr and op-crc. The impact on law, the judiciary and politics is not related to the amount of time that a given treaty has been in force in relation to Poland or to any reservations that were entered. For instance, crc and crpd have been encumbered with reservations, but have had a stronger impact than prior and fully-accepted cerd and cedaw. In comparison to other treaties, crc and crpd are fairly visible in law and practice, but for different reasons. In the case of crc, Polish ‘authorship’ of this treaty has been regularly and eagerly invoked in parliamentary debates, albeit without more substantive references to its norms. Besides being addressed in a token manner, crc has also been misused to restrict access to reproductive rights. As for crpd, it became part of Polish law thanks to the successful mobilisation of numerous organisations of persons with disabilities. It has frequently been used in litigation before domestic courts. In contrast to other treaties, an institutional mechanism (albeit with many imperfections) has been established for implementation, which could arise from the treaty provision that directly imposes such an obligation on states. Another specific example is cescr, the implementation of which remains limited due to the ‘programmatic’ interpretation of the economic, social and cultural rights by the executive and judiciary in Poland. These are but some of the noted peculiarities. Certainly, UN human rights treaties play an important role for other actors, in particular the nhri and ngos. This can be observed through the instances of active engagement in the reporting process, including a growing number of submissions to the Committees. Treaties and recommendations of the treaty bodies are also employed in advocacy activities. It may be expected that in case human rights in Poland continue backsliding, as has been the case since the post-2015 constitutional breakdown, their significance for the human rights movement in Poland will increase.

International Human Rights Law

Współautorstwo: Ciampi, Annalisa; Milas, Max; Ananthavinayagan, Thamil Ventham; Rachovitsa, Adamantia ; Theilen, Jens T.; Kahl, Verena; Arévalo-Ramírez, Walter; Rousset-Siri, Andrés

Public International Law : A Multi-Perspective Approach / Sué González Hauck, Raffaela Kunz, Max Milas (eds.) – Abingdon: Routledge, 2024., s. 531-615.

This chapter presents the system of international human rights law. It begins by tracing back the evolution of human rights as a separate branch of international law, from the aftermath of the Second World War, through and post the Cold War, up to the 21st century. Based on this historical introduction, the first sub-chapter presents the doctrinal tenets of international human rights law. This sub-chapter illustrates how adjudicative bodies, political entities, and domestic institutions review State behaviour according to human rights standards. In subsequent sub-chapters, the universal and regional human rights systems are introduced. Each of these sub-chapters highlights the history, sources, and institutions underpinning the respective system. These sub-chapters also underline the unique characteristics of each system. While all chapters include critical reflection, the concluding sub-chapter introduces the reader to critical accounts of human rights, broadly understood to encompass approaches which work to uncover the structure of human rights and their connection to other social phenomena such as relations of marginalisation, oppression, and exploitation.