Vulnerabilisation: Between mainstreaming and human rights overreach

Engström, Viljam; Heikkilä, Mikaela; Mustaniemi-Laakso, Maija

doi:10.1177/09240519221092599

Cited by 16 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 6 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Vulnerability pertains to the ‘basic structure’ of human rights (Besson, 2014, p. 63ff), whose function is to minimise and counter threats to the individual and collective interests the legal regime intends to safeguard. Consequently, legal norms and legal reforms, when (openly/consciously) rendered vulnerability sensitive – or ‘vulnerabilised’, borrowing from Engström, Heikkilä and Mustaniemi-Laakso (2022) – hold the promise of chief vulnerability-reducing/autonomy-enhancing outcomes.…”

Section: Vulnerability Through Law and Vulnerability In Lawmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vulnerability’s Legal Life: An Ambivalent Force of Migration Governance

Moreno-Lax,

Vavoula

2024

International Journal of Law in Context

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The role of vulnerability in migration governance This Special Issue takes stock of current debates across different disciplines and problematises the concept of vulnerability in the field of migration and its relationship to law, building on discussions held during the MAPS Project Conference of December 2020. 1 The Conference considered the treatment that migrants are facing in Europe and elsewhere, focusing on the difficulties they encounter in accessing their rights and interrogating the law's ambiguous position in their regard: exacerbating vulnerability, while, at the same time, also providing a possible source of protection that can unravel restrictive policies of deterrence and control (Moreno-Lax, 2017;Moreno-Lax and Giuffré, 2019). This dual role of the law vis-à-vis migration, as simultaneously a generator of vulnerability and its potential antidote, is what contributions to this Special Issue grapple with and aim to elucidate.Vulnerability is gaining traction as an explanatory paradigm in (human rights) law (e.g.

show abstract

Section: Vulnerability Through Law and Vulnerability In Lawmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vulnerability’s Legal Life: An Ambivalent Force of Migration Governance

Moreno-Lax,

Vavoula

2024

International Journal of Law in Context

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Nevertheless, I am aware that problems would arise if the use of vulnerability, as a lens to read the condition of the rights holders, worked as "gatekeeper for competing claims to protection" [14 p. 132] and means to lower the general level of protection [14,43]. Some scholars have shown the exclusionary side-effects -or even the exclusionary intended purposes -linked to the use of the notion of vulnerability in specific domains, such as those involving disabled asylum seekers and humanitarian interventions for forced migrants.…”

Section: Vulnerability and The Rationale Of Human Rightsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vulnerability and Human Rights: Which Compatibility?

Pariotti

2023

Int J Semiot Law

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

By embracing the ontological view of vulnerability and stressing its social basis, the paper aims to clarify the role of vulnerability within human rights paradigm.Vulnerability is conceived of by the author as a heuristic notion, which works as a pillar for a general approach to some crucial challenges to human dignity. Both this heuristic notion and these challenges are regarded in the paper as hallmarks for the human rights paradigm.In order to ground this view, the coherence between “vulnerability turn” and the rationale of human rights relies on a four-steps argument dealing with: (i) the denial of a necessary mismatch between the notion of vulnerability and the principle of autonomy; (ii) the appreciation of relation in human rights conceptualization; (iii) the complementarity between vulnerability, as a heuristic notion, and the principle of equality; (iv) the understanding of vulnerability as a “vehicle of empathy” not necessarily involving paternalist trends and therefore not in conflict with the empowerment purposes of human rights.The relevance of “vulnerability turn” in human rights paradigm is defended in the paper within a view of human rights as basic rights, i.e. as means to prevent or fight against those threats that seriously affect basic human needs.

show abstract

“…Overall, such special protection within human rights law both internationally and in many domestic legal systems is instrumental in reminding decision- and policy-makers of the fact that persons with disabilities are entitled to effective access to the same spectrum of rights as anyone else. At the same time, the vulnerability paradigm as a politico-social tool does not come without certain risks and pitfalls as regards, for example, selectivity and bias in terms of identifying special protection needs and vulnerability [ 3 ]. Such legal labels may in some contexts constitute gatekeepers to assistance and protection, whereby they may become a powerful means of governance [ 4 ].The use of vulnerability as a legally relevant benchmark may, as such, even lead to situations, where individuals feel the need to be categorised as vulnerable to gain access to certain forms of protection [ 5 ].…”

Section: Identifying and Naming: The Universal And Particular Dimensi...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Vulnerability, Disability, and Agency: Exploring Structures for Inclusive Decision-Making and Participation in a Responsive State

2022

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

By unpacking some of the dichotomies inherent in the concepts of vulnerability and disability, the article problematises some of the current legal approaches to disability in Finland. It argues that where used to single out population groups or individuals due to their embodied characteristics, the vulnerability paradigm can be seen to create binaries both among the persons with disabilities, and between the “vulnerable” persons with disabilities and the perception of a rational, self-standing and autonomous human being. To mitigate such binaries, the article explores an agency-centred discourse of vulnerability, one that recognises the co-existence of agency and vulnerability and sees agency as dynamic and responsive to the societal support structures that surround all of us. One of the central arguments of the article is that generalised approaches do, however, not suffice to make agency a reality for all persons with disabilities. Given the extensive diversity of intra-group variations between persons with disabilities, individualised solutions are needed for agency to be possible for all. To overcome objectification and de-agencification – and to enhance agency – this diversity of situations, needs and contexts of lived-in realities of individuals also needs to be expressly reflected in the legal language in addressing disability.

show abstract

Vulnerabilisation: Between mainstreaming and human rights overreach

Cited by 16 publications

References 6 publications

Vulnerability’s Legal Life: An Ambivalent Force of Migration Governance

Vulnerability’s Legal Life: An Ambivalent Force of Migration Governance

Vulnerability and Human Rights: Which Compatibility?

Vulnerability, Disability, and Agency: Exploring Structures for Inclusive Decision-Making and Participation in a Responsive State

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About