On 1 April 2023, Rowie Stolk of the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law started a new appointment for 0.7 FTE at Empirical Legal Studies Leiden (ELS@Leiden). ELS provides a platform that brings together legal scholars and social scientists to collaboratively explore legally relevant…

Melanie joined the Committee in October 2020 and as of 2021 will also form part of its Rule of Law Project, chairing the project’s sub-group on EU Agencies.

Professor of Constitutional Law, Wim Voermans, is surprised by the decision of PVV ministers to resign at the request of party leader Geert Wilders. Voermans says in Mr. Online that Wilders 'has no constitutional authority to do so.'

Professor of Financial Law Matthias Haentjens is recently appointed member of the European Commission’s Expert Group on Conflict of Law regarding Securities and Claims. The Group’s tasks shall be to assist the Commission with its work on conflict of laws on third-party effects of transactions in securities…

The D66 proposed bill on Ending Life with Dignity is inadequately substantiated and contains contradictions. This is the view expressed by Professor of Political Philosophy Paul Nieuwenburg in his inaugural lecture on 17 March.

Since 1 September, fourth-year student Thirza van 't Rood has been the new student member of the Institute Board at Cultural Anthropology. Her first task is to organise the elections for the programme committee. Her mission for the coming year is also to collect the opinions of less outspoken students.…

Our researchers form a unique and interdisciplinary team who are active in various fields.

Jews and Christians in the Middle East

Yousef Yousef is a 'self-made man'. But he first obtained his bachelor's degree in tax law in Leiden. 'A CEO needs to have a basic understanding of the principles of law', he says.

The Cyber Security lecturers are scholars and lecturers of Leiden University, Delft University of Technology and The Hague University of Applied Sciences.

Jos Winnink will defend his PhD dissertation, entitled “Early-stage detection of breakthrough-class scientific research”, on Wednesday February 22, 2017 at 3 pm. The two PhD supervisors are Prof. dr. Robert Tijssen and Prof. dr. Anthony van Raan (both at CWTS, Leiden University).

Brandon Zicha (Leiden University College The Hague) had always been critical of the teaching system at universities. But it was only when he passed the Senior Teaching Qualification at the end of last year that he was able to explain exactly what was wrong with it.

Researchers, civil servants and local residents met on 27 September to talk about partnering for sustainability. What were the results? In a green ‘city oasis’ in the centre of The Hague they spoke about the energy transition, bottom-up initiatives and citizen science.

To properly understand how babies absorb a language we need to study the process from a number of different perspectives, linguist Claartje Levelt argues. She accepts her appointment as Professor of Language Acquisition on 27 March with an inaugural lecture entitled ‘Language in its infancy’.

The recently opened ICPA (International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression Against Ukraine) in The Hague will be responsible for coordinating the prosecution of Russia for the crime of aggression and possibly also the prosecution of Vladimir Putin. The ICPA aims to close the gaps…

Pushing the limits and trying things out. The academic year of the Honours Academy started on 10 October and all the speakers encouraged students to jump in at the deep end.

A cancer pill, preferably without severe side effects, is something we’d all welcome. Is it a matter of time before such a pill is a reality? We put this question to three Leiden researchers and asked how they themselves are contributing to new cancer treatments.

With cancer, the immune system is a double-edged sword: it can attack tumour cells, but can also help them grow and spread. It is a question of harnessing it. This is what Professor Karin de Visser argued in her inaugural lecture on 15 November 2019.

My name is Eliza Steinbock, I’m 38 years old and I was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky in the United States. I started teaching and researching at Leiden University in 2014. I research and teach gender representation, mostly of transgender people, in media and culture.

This month the first edition of the new periodical Crimmigratie & Recht (Crimmigration & Law) has appeared. Peter Rodrigues is a member of the board of editors of this journal.

Anne Meuwese is appointed Professor of Public Law & Governance of AI at Leiden University as of 1 November 2020. This position is part of the University SAILS network, one of the new university-wide interdisciplinary development programmes funded by the Executive Board of Leiden University.

Light reflects from a mirror, but where exactly does this reflection happen? Well, it depends, Martin van Exter and Corné Koks discovered. Their precise calculations, published in Optics Express, are important for designing optical cavities for quantum communication.

What is the state of democracy in developing and transition countries in 2024? Terrible, according to the BTI Transformation Index.

Anthonya (Thony) Visser, Leiden Professor of German Language and Literature, is spending six months as a senior fellow at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies. 'Possibly the most important thing of all is that I have time.'

In this research project, the protection of personal data is compared in eight EU member states: France, Germany, the UK, Ireland, Romania, Italy, Sweden and the Netherlands. The comparison of the countries is focused on government policies for the protection of personal data, the applicable laws and…

During the opening of the academic year, true to tradition the LUC Teaching Prize will be awarded to the best lecture at the University. Get to know the nominees. This week: Christine Espin.

There are some lecturers who are better equipped to provide remote education than others. And then there is Aris Politopoulos, who already owned professional streaming gear long before he could apply this in his education. Now he lectures on ancient Assyria while sitting in an Assyrian palace, moving…

It is fifteen years since the first issue of The Hague Journal of Diplomacy (HJD) in 2006. To mark the occasion, we put together an editorial on where diplomacy, diplomatic studies and HJD might be going.

Leiden University will set up further activities with the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

It was his thesis supervisor during his master's in Film and Photographic Studies who encouraged Shivan Shazad to pursue a second master's in diversity policy at Ghent. He is now Manager of Diversity and Inclusion at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

Rain or shine: in the course ‘The Ecology Project’ students of Leiden University College visit the nature of The Hague each week.

During Leiden City of Science 2022, Janet Grijzenhout and Hannah De Mulder will put multilingualism in the spotlight by organising multilingual storytelling afternoons. They hope to show parents that raising children multilingually is achievable as well as beneficial.

Electrons in graphene behave like light particles; they have no mass and can penetrate everything: very useful if you dream about nano-electronics. But you do have to channel them. Carlo Beenakker will be researching how. He has been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant of 1.5 million euro to carry out this…

Leiden University is going to partner with the Asian Development Bank, a bank committed to regional development. President of the Executive Board Annetje Ottow signed a memorandum of understanding on this unique partnership in Manila on 27 April.

From 1 June 2020, Jorrit Rijpma will be holding the chair in European Law, specialization Area of Freedom, Security and Justice.

Tarlach McGonagle has been appointed as Professor of Media Law in the Information Society as of 1 May 2019. The Chair is established by the Leiden University Fund (LUF) and is situated within the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law.

Seven large reproductions of works by Rembrandt on seven University buildings in the centre of Leiden reveal the relationship between the painter and the University. Rembrandt van Rijn enrolled in the University in 1620 and painted the portraits of various alumni of the University. The exhibition runs…

The 2025 Dutch Parliamentary Study is a comprehensive survey of views and experiences of members of the Senate and House of Representatives. This survey, conducted by Leiden University’s Institute of Political Science, is part of a long and rich tradition of parliamentary surveys in the Netherlands.…

The train to The Hague holds no secrets for Jeroen Touwen anymore. Since October, the Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Humanities has been part of the board of Campus The Hague. One day a week, together with Jan Crijns (Professor of Criminal Law and, as of February 15, Vice-Dean of the Law Faculty), he oversees…

A recent publication by Niek Strohmaier, Assistant Professor of Empirical Legal Studies (ELS) Lab @Leiden, together with Professor Jan Adriaanse, Professor Kees van den Bos and Associate Professor Helen Pluut, has been accepted by the Journal of Applied Social Psychology.

On Friday 3 February, Minister Bruins Slot of the Interior and Kingdom Relations appointed Fatma Çapkurt, of the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law, to the Dutch State Committee on the Rule of Law. Chaired by Henk Kummeling, Rector Magnificus of Utrecht University, this State Committee…

Since 1 September 2017 Aagten works at the Institute. Her main area of interest includes asylum and refugee law and therefore she will be co-teaching the courses European Asylum Law, Immigration Law (Dutch course), Migration Law and Policy in the EU and Children and Migration (Dutch course).

Arco Timmermans Public Affairs

In the Netherlands, attention to empirical legal research is growing. Growing attention to ELS in legal academia goes hand in hand with attention to education in the field of ELS. To what extent do Dutch law students obtain empirical-legal skills?

On 21 June, Jorrit Rijpma spoke at the first meeting of the Task Force on a European Border and Coast Guard, established by the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels.

In what ways and to which extent are the systems of national administrative law becoming Europeanised? What role do EU legal principles play in this process? Are EU legal principles smoothly absorbed in national law and practice, or do the principles encounter resistance? Which legal principles attract…