Marek Jan Wasiński is an Associate Professor of International Law at the Faculty of Law and Administration, University of Lodz. His academic work spans public international law, international legal theory, human rights, and critical approaches to the discipline. His current research focuses in particular on the place of Eastern and Central Europe within the international legal order, including questions of liminality, post-imperiality, epistemic marginalization, and Second World Approaches to International Law (SWAIL).

He has taught and conducted research at a number of foreign universities, including Tbilisi State University, Kenyatta University in Nairobi, and the University of Granada. He has also served in international academic roles, including as an external examiner and reviewer within the South African academic system, and has contributed to scholarly projects and publications on international law, human rights, and the intellectual geography of the discipline. See e.g.,

• https://www.secondworlds.org/
• https://voelkerrechtsblog.org/researching-for-swail-part-i

I am inclined to see international law as an inescapable part of the richness and fluidity of the world we live in. Alongside my teaching and research at the University of Lodz, I enjoy engaging with international law across different regions, intellectual traditions, and academic cultures, and exploring how these different perspectives can illuminate what the discipline tends to take for granted.

• Author of Afrykańska Karta Praw Człowieka i Ludów. Studium podstawy normatywnej regionalnego systemu ochrony praw człowieka (University of Lodz Press, 2017), a monograph devoted to the African regional human rights system, as well as publications on international legal theory, human rights, the use of force, and critical approaches to international law.
• Since 2024, Principal Investigator of the research project Eastern Europe as a Distinct Post-Imperial and Liminal Space within the International Legal Order, funded under the Excellence Initiative – Research University programme at the University of Lodz.
• Co-initiator, together with Patryk I. Labuda (Central European University, Vienna), of Second World Approaches to International Law (SWAIL), an emerging international research project examining liminality, post-imperiality, and epistemic marginalization in international law. In February 2025, they co-organized the inaugural international conference In Search of Second World Approaches to International Law (SWAIL) at Central European University in Vienna.
• Co-author, with Patryk I. Labuda, of the editorial introducing SWAIL as a research agenda in a 2026 special double issue of the International Community Law Review: https://brill.com/view/journals/iclr/28/2-3/iclr.28.issue-2-3.xml
• SWAIL has subsequently developed through further publications, international workshops, seminars, and a public launch webinar in June 2026: https://www.secondworlds.org/
• Recent international conference presentations have included Ambivalence of the Nowhere: The Scholarship of Dissonance, Guilt, and Shame (Jagiellonian University, Kraków, 2024); Reinterpretation of Crimes in Central-Eastern Europe Within a Post-Imperial Paradigm (University of Warsaw, 2024); The Politics of Knowledge Production: Poland as Post-Colonial and Liminal Space in the International Legal Order (Pilecki Institute, Berlin, 2024); Self-Reflection and the ‘Second World’ Narrative: Post-Imperial and Liminal Spaces in the International Legal Order (University of Hong Kong, 2024); and At a Slight Angle to the Universe: SWAIL and History of International Law (Kanazawa University, Japan, 2026).
• His international academic service has included work as an external examiner and research reviewer within the South African academic system, as well as membership of the Scientific Advisory Board of Völkerrechtsblog.