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.

Making pushback facts visible : a review of tools in existing case law and the procedural framework of the European Court of Human Rights

International Journal of Human Rights 2025, s. 1-26.

Współautorstwo: Alpes, Maybritt Jill; Kienzle, Isabel

Pushbacks are practices which result in migrants being forced across borders without an individual assessment of their protection needs. Pushback facts, however, often remain invisible in ECtHR case law because judges rely on state evidence, while states do not consistently record their practice and prevent migrants and civil society organisations from producing evidence. Additionally, states have at times failed to submit requested evidence or submit wrong or incomplete information. Our article intervenes in this problematic context to ask whether and how the ECtHR can make pushback facts visible. Combining case law analysis with an empirical analysis of adjudication and litigation practices, we argue that the ECtHR can make pushback facts visible by mobilising existing tools to gather more evidence and analyse existing evidence in the light of the above-described context. With this argument, we highlight and bridge a crucial divide: while social sciences illuminate the context of evidence gathering, legal scholarship focuses on the analysis of evidence. By interweaving both approaches, this interdisciplinary article proposes a way forward that is both supportive for the ECtHR in its assessment of the factual circumstances of pushback cases, whilst also effective in view of existing case law and the procedural framework.

Redakcja:

Enforced Disappearances : On Universal Responses to a Worldwide Phenomenon

Współredaktorstwo: Kolaković-Bojović, Milica

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2025

X, 294 strony. Bibliografia - s. 269-292. Indeks.

Enforced Disappearances: On Universal Responses to a Worldwide Phenomenon discusses the UN human rights (both treaty bodies and special procedures) response to the key challenges of missing persons and enforced disappearances, including reparations, family rights, involvement of non-state actors, and the migration context. The book also includes several illustrative case studies from Latin America, Africa, Mexico, Western Balkans, and the Asia-Pacific region, which demonstrate the current challenges and problems relating to enforced disappearances in domestic or regional settings. The book includes contributions from experts in this issue working across a global range of jurisdictions.

Dealing with Uncertainty : On Addressing Enforced Disappearances Universally

Współautorstwo: Kolaković-Bojović, Milica

Enforced Disappearances : On Universal Responses to a Worldwide Phenomenon / edited by Grażyna Baranowska (Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg), Milica Kolaković-Bojović (Institute of Criminological and Sociological Research, Belgrade). Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2025, s. 1-18.

Uncertainty. This simple word does not sound strong enough to describe all the seriousness and gravity of the consequences of an enforced disappearance. This human rights violation consists of an arrest, detention, abduction or other forms of deprivation of liberty by State agents or persons and groups acting with State authorization, support or acquiescence, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which place such a person outside the protection of the law. In this context, the meaning of uncertainty goes beyond the lack of information about circumstances of a disappearance and the unknown fate of a missing person. Uncertainty encompasses all the stress, pain, suffering and emotional imbalance caused not only to direct victims but also family members, relatives and others close to the disappeared person.