Contemporary scholars routinely argue that juridification is a form of depoliticisation. The project will challenge this argument, suggesting that while it is true that juridification inhibits some traditional political dynamics, there is also a central thread of juridification as politicisation that changes the ways in which political demands are both made by citizens and met by state organs. The project will test this hypothesis by mapping the juridification of 'vulnerability', 'non-conventional families' and 'protection against gender discrimination' in recent case law of the European Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Justice. These sites will be analysed as political rather than legal battlegrounds, where what is at stake is not the protection of some individual or abstract rights, but the very understanding of what human and fundamental rights are in a democratic community.

The project is funded by FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia) / Ministry of Science, Technology, and Higher Education of Portugal, as the winner of the international call "Individual Call to Scientific Employment Stimulus - 6th Edition," following a peer-review evaluation process. My project received a score of 9.2/10, ranking first in the "Law and Political Theory" panel.