Agnieszka Kubal, “Judicial Relational Legal Consciousness: Authoritarian Backsliding As A Catalyst Of Change.” Journal of Law and Society, vol. 51, (2024): 45-65. Summary: In the context of Poland’s authoritarian backsliding between 2015 and 2023, this …
Europe
Hanelt, Vincze (2025), “Managing Courts in Competitive Authoritarian Regimes: Co-Optation, Repression and Resistance in Hungary.”
Etienne Hanelt and Attila Vincze,“Managing Courts In Competitive Authoritarian Regimes: Co-Optation, Repression And Resistance In Hungary.” Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft (2025): 1-20. Summary: This chapter investigates how attorneys, particularly judges, navigate judicial backsliding in Hungary’s competitive …
McCarthy and Mustafina (2024), “A Measure of Justice: Citizen Legal Advocates, Lay Lawyering, and Access to Justice in Russia”
This article explores how access to justice can be expanded in an authoritarian setting like Russia through the use of citizen legal advocates (CLAs)—ordinary citizens without formal legal education who represent defendants in criminal and administrative cases.
Mustafina (2022), “Turning on the Lights? Publicity and Defensive Legal Mobilization in Protest‐Related Trials in Russia”
This article examines how defense lawyers in contemporary Russia strategically use publicity in trials involving protesters, despite the broader context of a politicized and often predetermined legal system.
Khalikova and Kazun (2021), “Should I Stay, or Should I Go? Self-Legitimacy of Attorneys in an Authoritarian State”
This study investigates the professional challenges faced by lawyers in authoritarian regimes.
Meiertöns (2014), “An International Lawyer in Democracy and Dictatorship–Re-Introducing Herbert Kraus”
This article illustrates the dilemma lawyers face in authoritarian regimes—balancing resistance and survival—and highlights their potential role in both confronting and later rebuilding the rule of law.
Israël (2005), “From Cause Lawyering to Resistance: French Communist Lawyers in the Shadow of History (1929-1945)”
This chapter explores how the AJI engaged in international campaigns against fascism and repression, using legal analysis, public advocacy, and symbolic trials to advance their cause.
Provost (2015), “Teetering on the Edge of Legal Nihilism: Russia and the Evolving European Human Rights Regime”
This article examines the fragile state of the rule of law in Russia, highlighting its complicated relationship with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) since Russia ratified the European Convention in 1998.
Graczyk (2024), “Postwar Convictions of Nazi Judges and Prosecutors for Their Activities in the Occupied Polish Territories (1939-1945)”
This article provides a synthetic overview of prior research into the postwar criminal convictions of lawyers, specifically judges and prosecutors, who operated in Nazi-occupied Polish territories.
Kazun and Yakovlev (2024), “Who Demands Collective Action in an Imperfect Institutional Environment? A Case Study of the Profession of Advocates in Russia”
This article examines how ethically driven Russian criminal defense lawyers, motivated by professional values and exposure to rights violations, could form a collective force to strengthen professional associations, push for legal reform, and hold law enforcement accountable within a deteriorating democratic system.