What happens if a Member State decides to withdraw from the European Union? The “Brexit Charts” aim to provide information on the withdrawal procedure under Art. 50 TEU, on the legal consequences of leaving the EU and on the future relationship of the withdrawing state with the European Union.

LAPP student Heidi Kaarto and project leader Esther Kentin published an article on the right to regulate in relation to an EU ban on microplastics in a special issue on plastic regulation of Review of European, Comparative & International Environmental Law.

The debate about state behaviour in cyberspace may be set in the wrong legal key.

Steps to take if Leiden University needs to verify your academic records.

Do you have to be able to say everything on Twitter and Facebook? Is Instagram morally obliged to remove photos from attacks? Should we allow the terrorist group to recruit new members on the internet?

How should the international community of states respond to genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity? How can the perpetrators of international crimes be brought to justice? How can international crimes be prevented? How can the international community of states promote international consensus…

Steeds meer lidstaten van de VN erkennen Palestina als staat. Erkenning van Palestina als staat betekent dat Palestina sterker in haar schoenen staat en dat Israël volgens het internationaal recht geen geweld tegen Palestina mag gebruiken, zeggen juridische experts, waaronder Nico Schrijver, emeritus-hoogleraar…

The Farm to Fork Strategy seeks to transform the EU food system towards greater sustainability. To do this, Vincent Delhomme argues, some of the traditional concepts and doctrines in EU internal market law need to be challenged and rethought.

At the recent UN summit in Geneva, representatives from more than 180 countries failed to reach a global plastics agreement. Esther Kentin, a lecturer at Leiden Law School, spoke to media outlets on the issue: ‘Human health is at stake.’

The Netherlands is facing criticism after a tanker carrying sanctioned Venezuelan oil docked in Curaçao. Hilde Woker, assistant professor and an expert on the law of the sea, calls the incident 'contentious' in NRC newspaper and disputes the US interpretation of international law.

View the course structure for the MSc International Organisation at Leiden University. Includes semester overview, ECTS credits, and course descriptions for the September start in The Hague.

Consensus among Member States on the return of failed asylum seekers is currently lacking. For that reason, the Head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, wants new legislation that provides for a uniform policy. Armin Cuyvers, Professor of European Law, commented on the issue on Dutch radio…

In 1986 a group of international human rights experts convened in Maastricht to discuss the character and scope of state parties’ obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural rights. This resulted in the Limburg Principles on the Implementation of the International Covenant…

Inspectors say the William Schrikker Foundation, a leading Dutch youth protection agency, is failing in its duties. Mariëlle Bruning, Professor of Child Law, told public broadcaster NOS: ‘It's deeply concerning that there's insufficient oversight of children’s safety.’

Researcher Yung Lin received the Young Scholar Award at the annual conference of the European Association for Taiwan Studies (EATS). She obtained her PhD in 2025 on Taiwan’s public diplomacy.

In this policy brief, Dennis Broeders, Els De Busser and Patryk Pawlak discuss attribution of in cyberspace from three different perspectives: criminal law, international law and policy. Published together with EU Cyber Direct.

The chance that it will do so is about zero, but Russia is legally obliged to investigate violations of law during the war in Ukraine. States that enter into an armed conflict often deny liability, but under international humanitarian law and human rights they are obliged to investigate their military…

The winner of this year’s Jaap Doek Children’s Rights Thesis Award wants to raise more awareness for children who have a parent in detention: ‘It’s time we stop looking the other way and actually think about the impact.’

Starting April 2026, Niels van Willigen will join the Institute of Political Science at Leiden University’s Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences as Professor by Special Appointment in Strategic Studies. This appointment was made possible by the Atlantische Commissie, which established this chair…

Dimiter Toshkov, Olaf van Vliet, Alexandre Afonso and Zouheir El-Sahli from the Institute of Public Administration (FGGA) and the Department of Economics (Faculty of Law) have been commissioned to carry out research for the European Asylum Support Office.

Quantum position verification (QPV) - the subject of this thesis - is a novel way to authenticate unknown nodes in a quantum network without the need to physically meet up.

From 1-2 December 2022, the Frontex fundamental rights team met for a Workshop to reflect on their role and discuss current issues. Melanie Fink, Assistant Professor of European Law, was invited to contribute to the discussion with insights from her research on Frontex’s obligations and responsibili…

On June 9-10 2016 Dr. E. Devroe of the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA) was invited as a key-note speaker on ‘Intelligence Led policing and community oriented policing’ at the annual meeting of the ‘Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’ (OSCE), Transnational Threats Department,…

Danique Reidsma, student Economics, Policy and Management (EBM) at Leiden University, recently gave a presentation at a symposium of the Dutch Association of Social Security (NGSZ) in The Hague. She presented her own research around the question of whether eHealth can help to keep health care expenditure…

Political scientist Gisela Hirschmann (Leiden University) has been awarded a fellowship at Harvard University. During the 2020 Spring semester she will join the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs to further her research on multilateralism.

Het college van bestuur heeft Wim Voermans benoemd tot Universiteitshoogleraar. Hij gaat zich richten op duurzaam institutioneel vertrouwen.

After the summer break, the ILS Lunch Seminar series is back for its fourth and final year. These monthly seminars present the perfect opportunity to unite the different institutes situated within Leiden Law School and have steadily developed into somewhat of a tradition. On Thursday 19 September 2019,…

Mirjam van Reisen favours big data built up from local inputs in developing countries and suitable for local use. The new Professor of Computing for Society at Leiden's Faculty of Science connects data science with development sociology. Inaugural lecture 10 March.

Wars, climate change and the effects of covid have caused a global decline in children’s well-being. In her inaugural lecture Ann Skelton, Professor of Children’s Rights in a Sustainable World, points to the disastrous effects of multiple interacting crises.

The Department of Company Law and Financial Law provides education and conducts research in areas including company and corporate law, financial contract- and liability law, corporate governance, sustainability, Dutch and EU financial regulatory law, mergers and acquisitions, insolvency law, and international…

Het boek met de titel ‘the story of constitutions’ probeert interdisciplinair te begrijpen waar de grondwet vandaan komt en waarom het juist nu in korte tijd viral is gegaan. Waarom is dit oeroude fenomeen de laatste jaren zo in populariteit toegenomen en ook nog eens in een tijd, waarin democratieën…

At the recent UN summit in Geneva, representatives from more than 180 countries failed to reach a global plastics agreement. Esther Kentin, a lecturer at Leiden Law School, spoke to media outlets on the issue: ‘Human health is at stake.’

A recent ruling by the Dutch Council of State indicates that asylum seekers may no longer be sent back to Italy. The Council of State increasingly concludes that the countries at Europe's southern and eastern external borders expose migrants to degrading treatment. This in particular is a reason for…

Congratulations to Sara de Wit and Miriam Waltz, who have just won a Leiden University Global Seed Fund. Their proposed project entails 'Climate Talks' to foster equitable exchange between indigenous knowledge systems and climate science.

The research profile area Interaction between Legal Systems has a multidisciplinary approach and aims to inspire innovative research. Out of all the proposals put forward, three winning projects have been selected for the forthcoming research period 2016-2020.

After Zelensky and Putin, President Biden has also used the word ‘genocide’. We should not use the term genocide too loosely, says Professor of Public International Law Larissa van den Herik.

The project aims at contributing to the safeguarding of Palestinian cultural heritage and the enhancement of economic situation through tourism development, by presenting and managing one of the most important archaeological resources, the archaeological site of Tell Balata.

Jasmina Mačkić, Assistant Professor of Human Rights Law at the Europa Institute, has published her book, Proving Discriminatory Violence at the European Court of Human Rights. This work is based on her doctoral dissertation, which she defended in May 2017 and which was funded by the Netherlands Organisation…

In 2019, the European Parliament and the Council adopted the Preventive Restructuring Directive (2019/1023), providing for minimum harmonisation of, among others, preventive restructuring frameworks (PRF). This book, published in February 2024, provides in-depth analyses of its implementation in seven…

Even though the COVID-crisis continuously evolves and is marked by new realities and uncertainties, we can carefully begin to take stock looking back on the first phases of Dutch crisis management. What can we learn reflecting on the crisis strategies of this extraordinary and transboundary crisis that…

Migration and Mobility in the Early Roman Empire by Luuk de Ligt and Laurens E. Tacoma (Eds.)

Steven Hill will be appointed as Associate Senior Policy Fellow at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA) for a period of two years.

This edited volume draws from papers presented at the conference Closing the Gap | Responsibility in Cyberspace: Narratives and Practice, organized in June 2022 at the Egmont Palace in Brussels, Belgium, by Leiden University, as part of the EU Cyber Direct project.

Due to technological change, jobs and professions are constantly changing. For instance, it has long been known that some jobs are becoming redundant due to automation. Digitalisation and the rise of artificial intelligence are more recent developments that affect the labour market.

Employers are calling on rules to be relaxed on labour migrants from outside the EU as a way of attracting more labour migrants to solve staff shortages. Professor of Economics Olaf van Vliet explains on Dutch radio new programme BNR Nieuwsradio that there are various options to reduce staff shortag…

All of society is having to deal with the effects of staff shortages. Hospitals are unable to fill their duty rosters, primary schools are having to close their doors for one day per week, and trains are being cancelled on a regular basis. But why is that exactly? Professor of Economics Olaf van Vliet…

Olaf van Vliet behoort tot de vier hoogleraren gespecialiseerd in migratie die worden benoemd tot Leiden-Delft-Erasmus-hoogleraar.

Olaf van Vliet is Extraordinary Professor of Comparative Welfare State Analysis at the Economics department and the Institute of Public Administration at Leiden University. ‘From an electoral point of view, it is much more interesting to do things for people aged 66 and upward than it is for people…

What would happen if there were fewer migrant workers in the Netherlands? Olaf van Vliet, Professor of Economics, discussed this question on Dutch news site NU.nl.