The COVID-19 pandemic destabilised the political, social, and economic life of countries as it spread around the world. It posed multiple threats to individuals, societies, and across different domains of life, highlighting their intersectionality and uneven impacts. The paper focuses on the UK and South Korea, countries which took very different paths in framing and addressing the crisis. It draws on secondary data and an integrated critical human security and state capacity approach to compare how state responses, institutional capacity, and the mobilisation of policy instruments themselves construct constellations of insecurity which intersect with human security and vulnerability. It will demonstrate the structural constraints that have continued to shape vulnerability and the dynamics of human security and insecurity in turbulent times.

In 2020, the Israeli Supreme Court held section 4 of the Law on Prevention of Infiltration and Ensuring the Departure of Infiltrators from Israel, also known as the Deposit Law, to be unconstitutional. Among other provisions, that law required 36 per cent of the wages of foreign workers to be paid into a dedicated account and returned when the person left the country. For years the Deposit Law had a negative impact on the lives of asylum seekers because of its racialised, gendered, ethnonational and religious impact. Its intersectional impact illustrates cultural, structural and systematic violence, which has been particularly punitive for asylum-seeking women, who are more exposed to sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV).

In this context, this interdisciplinary qualitative and empirical research article draws from empirical fieldwork conducted in Israel to understand the intersectional impact of the law. It therefore conducts a theoretical examination of the literature and connects that to the empirical study. Thus, the article empirically and theoretically investigates (i) the extent to which state-created categories foster unlawful multilayered and multilevel forms of vulnerability and discrimination; (ii) the intersectional impact of the Deposit Law and how it is related to SGBV; and (iii) how state-created intersecting vulnerabilities can be diagnosed. The overall goal of the article is to indicate the intertwined nature and interconnection between state-created categories and the inevitability of state-created vulnerabilities.

This article proposes ethical — and legal — accountability for lawyers representing clients such as private equity (PE) firms who create ownership structures for nursing home systems. Using PE ownership as a case study, I will show that nursing home residents are often harmed and Medicaid costs inflated. I propose private law provides tools to compel such accountability, through (1) aiding and abetting doctrines and (2) fiduciary doctrines that require that the fiduciary be responsible for its vulnerable beneficiaries, not just ethically but for damages and equitable relief. I further propose that the teaching of Professional Responsibility needs to be changed to force law students to consider the effect of legal practice on third parties in situations like health care financing.

The present study aims to analyze the existence of different profiles in family caregivers of people with dementia according to psychosocial and resource variables. In addition, it aims to study whether there is a greater representation of each kinship group in each of the profiles and if there are differences in emotional distress among such profiles considering the kinship with the care-recipient. Participants were 288 family dementia caregivers, divided into four kinship groups (wives, husbands, sons and daughters). Psychosocial (familism, dysfunctional thoughts and experiential avoidance), resource (leisure activities and social support) and outcomes (depressive, anxious and guilt symptomatology) variables were collected. A hierarchical cluster analysis using Ward’s method, an exploratory factor analysis of two fixed factors and contingency tables were performed. Five clusters were obtained: Low psychosocial vulnerability-High resources, Low psychosocial vulnerability-Low resources, Mixed, High psychosocial vulnerability-High resources, and High psychosocial vulnerability-Low resources. Results suggested that clusters associated with lower distress were the Low psychosocial vulnerability-High resources and the High psychosocial vulnerability-High resources. Clusters associated with higher distress were the Low psychosocial vulnerability-Low resources and Mixed. High levels of dysfunctional thoughts, familism and experiential avoidance do not always have a maladaptive function. This could depend on sociocultural and resource variables such as the kinship with the caregiver or perceived social support. The identification of profiles of family caregivers potentially needing protection and vulnerable to psychological distress could help to increase the effectiveness of interventions aimed at this population.

This study explores vulnerability narratives used in relation to older adults and others during the COVID-19 pandemic. A mixed-method content analysis was conducted of 391 articles published in two major newspapers in Canada and the USA during the first wave of the pandemic. The findings indicated that during the early months of the pandemic, limited attention was directed towards its impact on older adults or other ‘vulnerable’ subpopulations in both countries. Where evident, intrinsic (individual-level) risk factors were most consistently used to frame the vulnerability of older adults. In contrast, vulnerability was more likely to be framed as structural with regard to other subpopulations (e.g., ethno-racial minorities). These narratives also differed somewhat in Canadian and US newspapers. The framing of older adults as intrinsically vulnerable reflects ageist stereotypes and promotes downstream policy interventions. Greater attention is needed to the role of structural factors in influencing pandemic-related outcomes among older adults.

This article examines the underlying structural elements contributing to the vulnerability experienced by asylum seekers and undocumented migrants across two critical domains: refugee eligibility examination and accessibility of essential social services, particularly healthcare. By drawing insights from fieldwork conducted in Toronto between 2020 and 2022, this article investigates how migrants navigate and perceive vulnerability encountered both at the front-end of the refugee status determination and while trying to access social services. It discusses the perspectives of key stakeholders, including lawyers, representatives of immigrant-focused non-profit organizations, and municipal officials, shedding light on their experiences and insights regarding the challenges faced by migrants. Furthermore, this article critically evaluates Canada’s adherence to the principles articulated in the 2018 United Nations Global Compacts on Migration and Refugees concerning the mitigation of vulnerability among migrant populations.

The fact that migration cases seldom raise any questions under Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is neither inevitable nor justified. This article reaffirms the equality provision as a useful and indeed necessary mechanism for the European Court of Human Rights to deal with such applications. More concretely, we build on our previous work, which identified a legal tool suitable for achieving this reorientation in judicial practice: the principle that we call ‘migratory vulnerability’, once recalibrated away from a group-based approach to a notion of vulnerability as situational and socially induced. In this article, we explain how the principle of migratory vulnerability, even if it does not represent an inherently suspect ground of differentiation, enables us to identify instances of discrimination defined as a measurable disadvantage that is disproportionate or arbitrary and cannot, therefore, be reasonably justified on the basis of the Convention. This presupposes a move away from nationality as a privileged ground in migration-related cases and from the ‘comparator’ test to determine Article 14 ECHR violations, to also encompass situational experiences. We end with two examples that show that this reconceptualization is both workable in practice and of added value, enabling the Court to find violations that presently go undetected.

It is now over ten years since the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR or Court) first established that asylum seekers are inherently and particularly vulnerable on account of their very situation as asylum seekers. This occurred in its Grand Chamber judgment in the case of M.S.S. v Belgium and Greece. This article critically examines the Court’s subsequent asylum jurisprudence through the lens of vulnerability. The analysis reveals that the Court has engaged in ‘vulnerability backsliding’. Specifically, it traces the ways in which the Court has surreptitiously reversed the very principle of asylum vulnerability it itself established in M.S.S. The consequence of this backsliding is not only that the judicially recognised concept of asylum vulnerability is undermined, but that some of the most vulnerable applicants that come before the Court suffer renewed marginalisation, and, in some circumstances, exclusion from the ‘special protection’ to which they were previously afforded courtesy of M.S.S.

States’ bordering practices force individuals to undertake dangerous migratory journeys and put them at risk of severe human rights violations. Yet, irregular arrivals who are found not to be at risk of serious harm in their countries of origin are perceived as voluntary migrants and are therefore assumed not to be in need of protection. This article employs the concept of vulnerability to challenge the idea that both the initial and subsequent dangerous migratory journeys are undertaken voluntarily. Based on an analysis of trafficking-based asylum claims from the UK and Germany, the article shows that both re-trafficking and irregular re-migration result from vulnerabilities which converge to preclude reintegration in the country of origin and access to livelihood options. While some of these vulnerabilities are likely to be present at the time of the initial dangerous journey already, the article pays particular attention to ‘consequential vulnerabilities’ brought about by previous migration experiences. It then introduces the concept of ‘route causes’ of irregular re-migration to describe factors which heighten the risk of re-migrating irregularly and therefore establish a risk on return related to harm experienced during irregular migration, rather than in the country of origin. Thus, the article shows that the vulnerability concept informs the future risk analysis in refugee law and argues that, just like a risk of re-trafficking, a risk of irregular re-migration could form the basis of an asylum claim.

This paper analyses legal responses to the problem of debt taken out due to coercion within an intimate relationship. Coerced debt differs from other forms of domestic abuse, as it involves a contractual relationship between the victim and a third-party lender. Legal responses must consider whether the victim should be released from her contractual obligation. The paper employs a theoretical lens of vulnerability and relationality, examining lenders’ duties to combat coerced debt, as well as contractual doctrines of undue influence and duress, which allow victims to have transactions set aside under certain circumstances. The paper argues that victims are being failed by an inadequate legal response. The law views vulnerability as an exceptional state and relationality as a constraint, rather than inherent features of the human condition. Through the social construct of the ‘free market’, lenders are consistently favoured by the law, with little obligation to ensure that transactions are free from coercion. The paper concludes with a call for the state to take greater responsibility for coerced debt and to allocate the risk differently than it currently does. This will promote higher levels of resilience for victims and allow them to escape abusive relational contexts.