Professor Atina Krajewska

• Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice, Graduate School of Education, University of Exeter, UK.
• PhD in Law (International and European Law), Department of Law Administration and Economics and the Willy Brandt Centre for German and European Studies, University of Wroclaw, Poland.
• Master in British Studies, Centre for British Studies, Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany.
• Master of Law, Department of Law and Administration, University of Wroclaw, Poland (5-year degree).

Atina Krajewska joined the University of Birmingham in January 2018. Prior to that she worked at the Sheffield Law School, Cardiff School of Law and Politics and at the University of Exeter, where she taught Reproductive Rights, Medical Law and Ethics, EU Law, and Tort Law at both the undergraduate and postgraduate level. She obtained her PhD at the University of Wrocław, Poland, in 2007. She also holds a "Master in British Studies" from the Humboldt University in Berlin. During her doctoral studies she was a research fellow at the Institute for German, European & International, Medical Law, Public Health Law and Bioethics at the University of Mannheim in 2005, and at the Max Planck Institute for Public Comparative and International Law in Heidelberg in 2006. She came to the UK in 2007 as a British Academy postdoctoral visiting fellow at the Egenis Centre for Genomics in Society at the Exeter University.

Professor Atina Krajewska’s work focuses on the developments of human rights law in the area of health and medicine. She has published in the area of genomics, reproductive rights, and global/transnational health law. Her book on Genetic Information and the Scope of Personal Autonomy in European Law, published in Poland in 2008, has had considerable impact on legislative decisions of Government and Parliament bodies in Poland. Its relevance has been noted by the Polish Minister of Science and Higher Education and the Chancellery of the Polish Senate. Over the years, she received funding from different funding bodies in Germany, Poland and the UK, including the British Academy, the ESRC, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), Max Planck Institute, and the Polish Science Foundation (FNP). 

Reproductive Rights
Global, International, and Transnational Health Law
Human Rights and Health
Medical and Health Law
Comparative Law

Find out more - our PhD Law  page has information about doctoral research at the University of Birmingham.

In recent years Professor Krajewska focused on the development and recognition of the Sociology of Health Law as a new area of inquiry. Sociology of Health Law examines the impact of health law on society and analyses the broader societal factors shaping the development of health law at the national, regional, and global level. Her work brings together insights from socio-legal studies of healthcare, transnational legal theory, sociology of law, sociology of health, and the sociology of professions. Within these general parameters, she uses sexual and reproductive health law as a context in which to examine phenomena constituting health law. Her work can be divided into three distinct strands of research. The first strand examines ways in which advances in science and medicine shape legal concepts, including legal subjectivity, personhood, discrimination, privacy, and (interstitial) legality. The second strand of her research analyses the impact of globalisation on healthcare and the development of transnational health law through ‘formative moments’. The third strand of her research examines the role of professions in shaping health law, healthcare, and society. Her most recent work –focusing on abortion law in Poland and other post-imperial spaces – examines the relationship between political transitions, legal reforms, and the development of the medical profession.

Her current AHRC-funded project Building Reproductive Justice with Indigenous Women in the Northeast of Brazil aims to consolidate reproductive justice by enhancing access to Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare of Indigenous women in accordance with their cultural practices. It does so by empirically examining Indigenous conceptions of sexual and reproductive health and the ways in which they are accommodated in Brazilian law, policy, and medical practice. It examines violations of Sexual and Reproductive Rights and their effects by analysing national and regional laws and policies and conducting interviews with Indigenous leaders, activists and policy makers. The project pays particular attention to the role of healthcare professionals and traditional healers in the construction of reproductive justice. 

Project website: Reproductive Justice | Indigenous Women – Birmingham Law School research project