Abstract The International Court of Justice’s strategies for identifying customary international law in both its contentious and advisory proceedings are often viewed as expressions of judicial impartiality. Its reliance on treaties codifying customary norms as well as on functional or equitable reasoning reflects the institutional constraints of its mandate. However, these constraints are not the sole drivers of its approach. The relational nature of international law – particularly the conditions under which norms gain binding force – also shapes the Court’s identification strategies. The relational normativity of customary international law highlights the inescapable role of politics in the Court’s work as it navigates questions of trust, legitimacy and compliance. In this light, the Court functions not only as a judicial body but also as a political actor whose legitimacy depends on balancing rules-based and relational governance before the bench and outside the courtroom.

Abstract The paper addresses the issue of the child as a special subject of rights and freedoms in international human rights law. The traditions of child protection date back to the interwar period, and afterwards, through the so-called hardening of international law, appropriate protective standards were adopted under the Convention on the Rights of the Child of 1989. The Convention considers the child not only as an object of protection, but first of all as a subject of rights and freedoms. The fact of empowering the child is manifested in the very language of the Convention, which uses ‘natural-law’ expressions, e.g. every child has the right to life. These rights are vested in the child not by being conferred upon by a state authority, but are objective and stem from the very essence of humanity and human dignity. The guiding principle contained in the Convention on the Rights of the Child is the best interest of the child as a superior value requiring preferential treatment in comparison with other interests of natural and juridical persons. It does not contain a comparison or reference to the interest of the state or the interest of society, which demonstrates absolute preference. Treating the interests of the child as a superior matter is the only right and humane solution. Protecting a person who is weaker than others due to their physical and mental immaturity is a natural reaction practically in every society, which is manifested in the norms of the legal system.

Abstract This article examines key children’s rights in Poland. Against the background of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland of 2 April 1997, the author analyses the child’s right to protection from violence, cruelty, exploitation and demoralization; the right to care and assistance from public authorities in situations of deprivation of parental care; and the child’s right to be heard and, as far as possible, to have their opinion taken into account by public authorities and by persons responsible for the child in the process of determining their rights. The article also introduces the concept of the ‘child’, which is inconsistently defined within the Constitution, the Civil Code, and the Family and Guardianship Code, which creates a certain inconsistency within the Polish legal system. The aim of the article is to present selected children’s rights – identified by the author as the most fundamental – and to analyse the effectiveness of legal instruments in protecting these rights.

Abstract The differentiation between developing and developed countries has been one of the central issues in the climate change legal regime from the beginning. Although there is a consensus among countries regarding the CBDR-RC as the basis for differentiation, the developing countries have always emphasized the first part of the principle, the responsibility of the developed countries based on equity, and in contrast, the developed countries have focused on the second part, the capability of countries to deal with climate change. Due to this contrast between approaches, the differentiation in the evolutionary process of the climate change regime has always been very volatile, from the UNFCCC to the Paris Agreement. The question arises as to what direction the differentiation has gone and what path it will take. This research shows that the movement toward specialization, pragmatism, and flexibility indicate differentiation is going towards strengthening, and the attempt to weaken or gradually eliminate it will most likely lead to the meaningless participation of developing countries and ultimately the ineffectiveness of the regime. To achieve equitable differentiation along with global participation in the future, two-stage differentiation can be applied. In the first step, the differentiation should be applied between developed and developing countries based on an equitable approach to changing responsibility, and in the second step, sub-differentiation should be applied between the developing countries themselves based on national economic-environmental circumstances such as capability and vulnerability. In this case, differentiation will be considered an opportunity and catalyst instead of a threat and an obstacle.

Abstract The article concludes the Special Issue by exploring the role that international criminal law (ICL) could play in the protection of the environment in light of the three core issues covered in the Special Issue: the right to a healthy environment, climate change litigation and Indigenous peoples’ Earth-Centric vision. First, the paper argues that fora applying ICL, including the International Criminal Court, could offer legal avenues to prosecute serious violations of the right to a healthy environment. Second, it alleges that whilst cases involving conducts leading to environmental degradation and destruction could be brought under ICL, ICL could not address the broader impact of such conducts, including on climate change. Third, it discusses the extent to which ICL could incorporate Indigenous peoples’ Earth-centric approach to enhance the protection of the environment.

Abstract The subject of the article is an analysis of the human right to marry and the right to establish a family. The author considers the guarantees of this right in three areas. The first one is the universal dimension, the essence of which are the documents guaranteeing the protection of human rights adopted by the United Nations: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Covenant on Social, Economic and Cultural Rights. In the European dimension, the most important is Article 12 of the European Convention on Human Rights, ensuring the right to marry for a man and a woman who have reached the appropriate age. In the Polish national dimension, Article 18 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland of 1997 solidified the existing traditional form of marriage, i.e. the state of a union between a man and a woman. It also ensures the care and protection of the state to families created on the basis of a formally concluded marriage, as well as to other families, especially those with many children and incomplete families. According to the author, the right to get married and the right to found a family are connected and complementary, but the right to start a family can be exercised independently of getting married.

Abstract The protection of human rights is one of the most important issues in the modern world and their development is a challenge for all legal systems. Human rights protection is an established fact in international law. This is both an expression of the expectations of the states that have created this system and an instrument designed to see the solutions contained therein incorporated into national legal systems. Human rights are of particular interest on the Old Continent. They have been developed both within the regional system of the Council of Europe and, as ‘fundamental rights’, within the European Union. Human rights are one of those areas where both legally binding instruments and ‘soft law’ acts are adopted. These acts of ‘soft law’ do not formally create legal obligations but they nevertheless affect their addressees, including states, by virtue of the respect given to the entities that adopt them. There are also examples of ‘soft law’ acts having institutional setting and significance with the creation of bodies to monitor their implementation. This paper contains introductory remarks in relation to current issues in the field of international and European human rights law that are presented in this Special Issue of the International Community Law Review (ICLR).

Abstract The European acquis on the protection of human rights is indisputable. This also applies to the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights. However, this acquis is not extensive enough to cover all the problems Europeans have. The aim of this article is to establish the status quo in the area of anti-discrimination against persons on the autism spectrum in the labour market, taking into account the related Strasbourg jurisprudence in question, as a starting point for potential proceedings (in this area) before the European Court of Human Rights. Currently, the body of doctrine in this area is not extensive, and the increasing number of diagnosed cases of autism may in the future necessitate a deeper reflection on the guarantees provided by international law. The article will generally characterise autism, discuss ECtHR jurisprudence relating to persons with disabilities and (briefly) the right to work, discuss the labour market participation of persons on the autism spectrum in selected countries as a challenge to jurisprudence, and present a conclusion.