Agnieszka Kubal

Agnieszka is Associate Professor at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies (CSLS), Law Faculty and a Research Fellow at Green Templeton College. She completed her DPhil at University of Oxford (2011). Upon post-doctoral spells at International Migration Institute (Oxford), CSLS (Oxford) and Davis Centre for Russian and Eurasian Studies (Harvard), she was based at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES) at UCL, where she held an Associate Professorship in Sociology.

Significant Publications

Agnieszka is an interdisciplinary socio-legal scholar with area studies interest in Central Eastern Europe and Russia. She is the author of two monographs, Socio-legal Integration. Polish post-2004 EU Enlargement Migrants in the UK (2012, Ashgate/ Routledge) and Immigration and Refugee Law in Russia. Socio-Legal Perspectives (2019, Cambridge University Press). The latter was acclaimed as ‘reminiscent of Ewick and Silbey’s The Common Place of Law’ (by Kathryn Hendley, William Voss-Bascom Professor of Law and Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison). Together with Marina Kurkchiyan, Dr Kubal co-edited a volume on A Sociology of Justice in Russia (2018, Cambridge University Press) praised by the critics as 'the most analytically sophisticated and empirically rich volume ever produced on the everyday operation of the Russian legal system' (Eugene Huskey, Stetson University). She is currently working on a co-authored monograph entitled Who are the humans behind Human Rights in Eastern Europe and Russia? Historical and Comparative Perspectives (under contract with UCL Press).

Research Projects

Dr Kubal is currently a Principal Investigator on an UKRI/ERC Starter Grant (2022-2027) ‘Who are the humans behind Human Rights in Eastern Europe and Russia?’ (HuRiEE) This five-year research (GBP 1.2 m) breaks new ground in studying human rights mobilisation as a window into the societies of Eastern Europe and Russia. The ultimate ambition for this project is to develop a brand-new theory of the relationship between human rights mobilisation, ECtHR’s legitimacy, and the development of societies under the conditions of authoritarianism (Russia), open military conflict (Ukraine), deep transformations (Romania), democratic backsliding (Hungary) and transition back to the rule of law (Poland). 

Concurrently, Dr Kubal leads on the British Academy’s Knowledge Frontiers Symposia follow-on funding for the project ‘Activism As A Modality Of Resistance And Communication? Comparing Judicial Activism Across Eastern Europe’. This is supported by Dr Beata Huszka from the HuRiEE team and Professor Birgit Apitzsch (University of Bochum) and Professor Ramona Coman (Université Libre de Bruxelles). 

In the past Agnieszka was awarded research grants by the British Academy, Leverhulme/BA and the John Fell OUP Fund.

Research Impact

Agnieszka’s research has had a significant impact beyond academia. Her work with undocumented Syrian asylum seekers in Russia contributed to a European Court of Human Rights judgment (LM and Others v Russia, 2015) that protected Syrians from deportation across Europe. The judgment was translated into nine languages (including Turkish, Croatian, Czech), meaning it was deemed a helpful tool by human rights and immigration lawyers across several countries.