The Faculty Board has appointed Professor Ymre Schuurmans as Academic Director of the Institute of Public Law. Schuurmans is Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law and was Head of the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law for the past six years.

How do Humanitarian Response Organizations (HROs) and Virtual & Technical Communities (V&TCs) collaboratively govern disaster sensemaking processes, and what challenges shape the effectiveness of these collaborations between 2010 and 2016?

In this book, Lydie Cabane examines the history of disaster management in South Africa.

On 19 May 2020, Xuechan Ma defended her thesis 'Moving towards Coexistence and Cooperation: The Spratly Islands and International Law'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. N.J. Schrijver.

Last November, it was announced that the European Commission has awarded a Jean Monnet Chair to Professor of Tax Law Irma Mosquera Valderrama. She will use the grant to shape the EUTAXGOV project over the next three years.

Associate Professor Gianclaudio Malgieri (eLaw – Center for Law and Digital Technologies) and Professor Margot E. Kaminski (University of Colorado Law School) have published a new article in the very prestigious Yale Journal of Law & Technology, titled Impacted Stakeholder Participation in AI and Data…

In what ways does Atelier education contribute to skills development, active learning, interactions between students and staff, and connections between disciplines of law?

The third book in the Restatement of Labour Law Series has recently been published by German publisher Beck. This part addresses employment termination law. The book contains 36 chapters with an extensive overview of employment termination law in the different European countries as well as a comparative…

On 2 Juni 2021, Maarten Manse defended his thesis 'Promise, Pretence and Pragmatism: Governance and Taxation in Colonial Indonesia, 1870-1940'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. R. Arendsen.

Last Friday, we celebrated ten years of the master’s specialisation in Labour Law at Leiden Law School!

Using artificial intelligence is more complicated for the government than for companies. Bram Klievink, Professor of Public Administration, aims to identify the problems and find solutions.

The annual World Economic Forum (WEF) is underway, and it is a key instance for world leaders to adress global and regional challenges. The organisation expects to convene over 3,000 leaders from more than 130 countries. However, there is rising concern about the number of key leaders that will not…

On 11 June 2020, Sabine Witting defended her thesis 'Child Sexual Abuse in the Digital Era: Rethinking Legal Frameworks and Transnational Law Enforcement Collaboration'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. J.J. Sloth-Nielsen and Prof. S. van der Hof.

On 18 June 2019, Neta Palkovitz Menashy defended her thesis 'Regulating a Revolution: Small Satellites and the Law of Outer Space'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. dr. P.M.J. Mendes de Leon and Prof. dr. G. Molier.

Conference

On 10 April 2025, Melanie Fink presented her current research on the interplay between EU constitutional law and the regulation of digital technologies.

Anthropology of Law in Muslim Sudan analyses the hybridity of law systems and the plurality of legal practices in rural and urban contexts of contemporary Sudan, shedding light on the complex relation between Islam and society.

Documenting and describing languages of the world.

On 18 June, Esmée Driessen defended the thesis 'Government encouragement and facilitation of civic initiatives. On the interpretation of ‘serving government’ in third-generation civic participation'. The doctoral research was supervised by Geerten Boogaard and Willemien den Ouden.

Natural resources often stretch across borders that separate modern nation states. This can create conflict and limit opportunities for regulated consumption of their goods and services, but also provide opportunities for joint multinational efforts that exceed single country capabilities.

On 9 October, Corné Smit defended his doctoral thesis, 'Minority governments in the Netherlands and Denmark '. The PhD research was supervised by Luc Verheij and Geerten Boogaard.

This course explores international arbitration as one of the most common methods of international dispute settlement. You will gain an in-depth understanding of international arbitration through the analysis of its role as a mechanism of dispute settlement, its institutions, the fields of law it is…

Sophie Vériter explores a small state’s impact on EU security governance, a hard challenge means against big states in this policy area.

The Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo (NVIC) and the Amsterdam Centre for Migration and Refugee Law (ACMRL) of the VU University Amsterdam organise a public seminar about global migration and refugee law in Egypt and Morocco, focusing on the International Convention on the Rights of Migrant Workers…

Government impartiality is considered a core feature of quality of government, and one that leads to favorable macro‐level outcomes. We have limited knowledge, however, of how impartiality affects citizens' perceptions of public service quality. In particular, we do not know how the impacts of impartiality…

On 31 August 2022, a delegation from the Korean Ministry of Government Legislation visited the International Institute of Air and Space Law (IIASL) at Leiden University as part of their official visit to the Netherlands. The delegation’s visit was aimed at exchanging knowledge and experience on interaction…

Tachtig academische papers, 270 deelnemers en vier rondetafelgesprekken over het aanpakken van mondiale problemen. De tweede conferentie van het interdisciplinaire onderzoeksprogramma Global Transformations and Governance Challenges werd groots opgezet. Wat vonden de deelnemers ervan? Bekijk het in…

An assessment of Libyan legislation

Matthias Haentjens, Jouke Tegelaar and Dorine Verheij have recently published the chapter Financial Market Regulation and Supervision in the new volume of the prestigious The Law of the European Union (previously Kapteyn and VerLoren van Themaat).

On the 22nd of January 2016 the article: 'Drie valkuilen en denkfouten in de drang naar een kleinere overheid' (translation from Dutch: 'Three pitfalls and fallacies in the desire for a smaller government') written by prof. dr. Frits M. van der Meer & Mr. dr. G.S.A. Dijkstra was posted on Mejudice:…

Geopolitical events affect Europe un a myriad of ways far beyond trade and defence. They also impact areas such as the environment, migration, technology, EU enlargement, multilateralism, and the rules-based international order more generally. Three GTGC researchers participated in a panel discussion…

Applications can be submitted by doctoral researchers (at least in the second year of their studies during the proppsed stay), postdocotral researchers, and senior researchers. The research should thematically align with one of the research themes or projects conducted by the academic staf of the Department…

Moritz Jesse delivered a lecture titled 'Legal Risks from, to, and within EU Migration Law - An Inventory’ as part of the lunch seminar series organized by the Amsterdam Centre for European Law and Governance at the University of Amsterdam in May.

PhD defence

Together with College of Europe Professors Sieglinde Gstöhl and Simon Schunz, Joris Larik edited an interdisciplinary special issue for the Journal of European Integration on the theme 'The European Union and the Governance of Contested Global Spaces in an Era of Geopolitics'.

2025 marks the 50th anniversary of the first United Nations World Conference on Women (Mexico City, 1975), a process that led to the creation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995). The Global Transformations and Governance Challenges Programme organised a roundtable to reflect on…