The Just Peace Festival's first edition is live! The Opening Event marked the beginning of two weeks filled with activities to reflect on what peace and justice mean in today's world.

Professor of International Relations Daniel Thomas is clear: anyone taking peace in Europe for granted is shutting their eyes to reality.

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To understand which groups turn against their government, you need to understand the political culture in which they grew up, what they expect from a ‘state’ and what alternatives there are. With its long interdisciplinary experience, ASCL is often considered to be a regional expertise centre. But this…

It is difficult to hold international organisations (IOs) accountable for human rights violations. Gisela Hirschmann (Institute of Political Science, Leiden University) introduces the concept of pluralist accountability, whereby third parties set the standards for IOs’ actions in relation to human rights,…

As an enthusiastic nature lover, Maaike Kempes began studying biology at Leiden University. Now, she is extraordinary professor of Forensic Neuropedagogy at the faculty of Social Sciences. She is researching how neurobiology plays a role in delinquent behaviour among young people. ‘They’re like Ferraris…

On 1 November 2019, international Master's students Data Science from Leiden University presented the elaboration of their data concepts to senior officials of the House of Representatives and Rijks I-Ecosysteem. With the presentation, they successfully completed this part of the Data Science master…

Land conflicts between farmers and government authorities or large plantation businesses are an everyday occurrence in many countries in the Global South. The same is true for Indonesia where thousands of land conflicts have been going on for years without a solution being found. In these types of conflicts,…

On the initiative of Leiden Law School’s Art Committee, the festive opening of the photo exhibition of the Leiden Amateur Photographic Society (LAFV) took place on Friday 20 May 2022 in the C corridor of the Kamerlingh Onnes Building.

Is aviation on a one-way journey or a round trip? That is the question Steven Truxal will answer in his inaugural lecture From Disruption to Innovation in Air and Space: Legal Solutions for a Sustainable Future on Monday 15 November. This professor of air and space law is positive. That’s one thing…

During last summer, the Faculty of Law offered an Honours Class about the theme 'Governing Crime and Migration'. Hillary Mellinger, one of the participating international students, tells us about her experiences.

Over 20,000 students, lecturers, administrators, support staff and many others protested on 25 November against the plans to make billions of cuts to higher education. Students and staff from Leiden University also travelled to The Hague to voice their objections to the disastrous plans.

Connecting worlds, enhancing research and teaching, and providing innovative solutions to complex social issues: that is the idea behind interdisciplinary research. In that respect, a huge amount happened at Leiden University in 2023.

Simona Demková, Assistant professor at the Europa Institute of Leiden University, publishes her book ‘Automated Decision-Making and Effective Remedies: The New Dynamics in the Protection of EU Fundamental Rights in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice’.

LUC is the first to confer the diploma of the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs, the new Faculty name since January 2016 making this graduation an extra special occasion.

On Thursday 19 and Friday 20 September the PROSEPS conference took place in The Hague under the auspices of the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs of Leiden University. During the two-day meet up, working group meetings and workshops took place in the New Babylon Conference Centre in the heart…

From 3 to 5 September 2025, the project Governing and Building the City will organize the conference 'Good Governance and the Built Environment of Late Medieval Cities (ca. 1200–1600)' at KBR in Brussels. The deadline for the call for papers is 7 April.

Information Session

VR experience | Just Peace Festival

We spoke with Mathilde Witkam about her research as a dual PhD candidate at the Dual PhD Centre. Her dissertation is about the effect of open government on public trust. Mathilde: ‘Trust in government ensures that people are more honest in their tax returns; less control saves time and money.’

Lecture, Blue History Network Graduate Forum

On 15 April Susanne Deen will start as Diversity & Inclusion Coordinator for Leiden Law School and the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs. The aim of this new position is to contribute to establishing an inclusive community where all students and staff feel valued and respected, and can achieve…

On 15 September Armin Cuyvers lectured on the legal challenges surrounding Brexit for the The Academy for Legislation, the most important educational institute for legislative lawyers in the Netherlands.

Michiel Luining is a Lecturer at the Institute of Public Administration and is especially interested in Eastern and Central Europe.

This is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of Leiden Law School with three universities in Kenya.

Pressing Matter: Ownership, Value and the Question of Colonial Heritage in Museums is a large-scale research project funded through the Dutch National Research Agenda, and led by Wayne Modest and Susan Legêne (Vrije Universiteit). Work Package 3 on “Value” phrases its main research question as follows:…

In this project, the hypothesis that language contact crucially impacts the development of spatial grammar and phonology is investigated.

This UNESCO Chair at CWTS aims to contribute to UNESCO’s agenda to foster diversity and inclusion in science. The chair has two main lines of work:

How can we promote more durable solutions to protracted refugee situations and which roles can connectivity and mobility of displaced people play to improve protection and resilience?

Team Dutch and Colonial History

This is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of the Faculty of Humanities with Université Mohamed VI Polytechnique.

This PhD project investigates the impacts of recognition of sign languages on communication and instruction for deaf learners in primary schools in Uganda.

Experiences of MA African Studies students doing fieldwork abroad.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has formally approved the withdrawal of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso from the regional body. The approval comes just days after President Bola Tinubu promised German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier that ECOWAS would handle the three countries'…

Stefano Bellucci, university lecturer at the Institute for History, has been awarded a grant by the EAP for a pilot project for the preservation and digitisation of the workers’ files of the Takoradi Railways (now part of the Ghana Railways Corporation).

On 4-5 December the Europa Institute and the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs of Leiden University organize a conference on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

This research evaluates the Youth Act. It will provide an overview of how the transition takes place, whether the transformation process develops in the right direction and whether the legal safeguards are functioning properly.

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Dr Tanja Masson-Zwaan, assistant professor at the International Institute of Air and Space Law, recently visited four universities and a research institute in China. During her visit to Wuhan University, Masson-Zwaan was appointed as an adjunct professor. She was handed a certificate by Professor Xiao…

What do you do as a government if you are at a loss? You ask an expert for help. In the seventeenth-century Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, one expert after another popped up to advise one of the many regional authorities. In her Veni project, researcher Anna-Luna Post sets out to discover…

Taylor Swift wants to stop people from creating AI-generated images and audio of her. Dirk Visser, Professor of Intellectual Property Law, says it is unclear whether this will have any effect.

On the invitation of the organizing students, Armin Cuvyers opened both the first year and the second and third year of the Leiden Law School on 5 and 6 September.

Just Peace Festival

The Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies is delighted to announce that Dr Farouk El-Hosseny will join the teaching staff as Visiting Assistant Professor of International Law.

Cybercriminality and cybersecurity are hot topics, in the academic world as well as elsewhere. But there is room for improvement in this research, says Bibi van den Berg, Professor of Cybersecurity Governance at Leiden University. Inaugural lecture 8 June.

In February 2023, the International Institute of Air and Space Law and the Kalshoven-Gieskes Forum for International Humanitarian Law organised a seminar on the topic of 'The optimisation of the use of satellite information in the humanitarian domain – Legal and space-related developments' at Leiden…