Providers of telephone, internet or data centers can be seen as companies of vital importance because of their national importance. This comes as no surprise. In the Netherlands, additional legislation was deemed necessary to protect national security and a legislative proposal was presented in April…

Journalists in the Netherlands are unhappy about the handling of their requests under the Dutch Open Government Act (Wet open overheid, Woo). They say these requests take too long, produce too little results, and that communication could be better.

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.

Lecture

On Sunday 31 January 2016, Prof. Carsten Stahn spoke at the IBA Annual Conference on International Criminal Law.

Municipalities are increasingly attempting to solve problems without issuing decisions. A notification procedure (notification – investigation – application – decision) has recently been introduced that replaces part of the traditional application procedure. Ymre Schuurmans, Professor of Constitutional…

Eleven days, 100 films, various unique locations transformed into temporary cinemas. From 26 October until 5 November it’s once again time for the Leiden International Film Festival (LIFF). So which of these films are an absolute must for students and staff of Leiden Law School? An overview of our four…

In the Netherlands, various local VVD parties are calling for an asylum stop. Other political parties, Ja21, BBB, PVV and FvD, also see an asylum stop as the solution to the continuing asylum problems. Earlier, an opinion poll showed that a majority (69 per cent) of the Dutch population agrees. Is an…

How can more people take ownership of technology? Underlying this question is the assumption that not enough people currently own technology. According to Reijer Passchier, Associate Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law in Leiden, and Professor of Digitisation and the Democratic Rule of…

Recently, a pro-Palestine demonstration was held outside the National Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam during its opening, which was being attended by President Herzog of Israel. Wilders’ response? ‘It smells like a political campaign by the far-left mayor of Amsterdam. Irresponsible.’

Very few treaties that are negotiated by the EU, have triggered such resistance as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). From chlorinated chicken to a lack of democracy and transparency: emotions on TTIP run high. For that reason, the conference “TTIP: an EU perspective on global…

Aleydis Nissen, one of our colleagues from Belgium, created a feature article with photos for Knack magazine (Roularta Media Group). The Pascal Decroos Fund sponsored this article.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the European Union (EU) and its Member States have adopted wide-ranging legal and political measures to support Ukraine in its struggle.

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.’

International prosecutors, for instance at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, investigate particularly serious crimes such as genocide. They decide, among other things, whether or not to prosecute. PhD candidate Cale Davis investigated how prosecutors come to such decisions and will defend…

On 21 June, Ingrid Leijten gave a lecture at the Centre for Human Rights of the Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (CHREN) in Germany. The interdisciplinary centre is linked to a Master’s Programme in Human Rights with students from all over the world.

The FIFA World Cup will get underway in Qatar this November – an event that has attracted much discussion in recent years. This discussion is not only centred on sport. Human rights are in the spotlights in Qatar. On Friday 30 September, Leiden University organised a debate in which experts from various…

Jurist Gineke Wiggers wants to predict the expected impact of legal articles. Carel Stolker, Rector of the University and, like Wiggers, a legal specialist, is enthusiastic about the research. ‘A big data project like this will help us establish the effect of our work on society.’

OpinioJuris, one of the world’s leading international law blogs, has hosted an interdisciplinary online symposium on Professor Carsten Stahn’s new book entitled ‘Confronting Colonial Objects’.

Stichting Onderwijsgeschillen (Foundation for Educational Disputes) is pleased to announce that it has established an endowed chair ‘Conflictoplossing en rechtsbescherming in het onderwijs' (conflict resolution and legal protection in education) at Leiden University.

The Netherlands is falling behind in Europe with strict asylum policy while other countries are tightening their rules. Mark Klaassen, Assistant Professor in Migration Law, comments in Dutch newspaper ‘de Telegraaf’ that these rules might not stand up in court.

On 13 October 2023, Tuvana Aras, PhD Candidate at the Europa Institute and the International Institute of Air & Space Law, took part in the Second Max Planck Law Conference for Young European Scholars hosted by the Max Planck European Law Group in Frankfurt, Germany.

On 13 February 2018, the European Law Expertise Centre (ECER) and the newly established Centre for International Law (CIR) jointly organised a Brexit conference on the practical implications of international and European law of the Brexit for the interpretation and application of the law in practice…

On 11 October, the roundtable entitled ‘Academic Freedom – Theoretical Perspectives’ took place at Leiden University's Academy Building. This event was organised as part of the Vidi research project entitled 'The EU fundamental right to 'freedom of the art and sciences': exploring the limits on the…

Dr Olga Ceran has been selected as a 2025/26 Mellon/SAR Academic Freedom Fellow. As one of 11 fellows in this year’s cohort, she will work on a project titled ‘The Linguistic Dimension of Academic Freedom: A Human Rights Analysis of Higher
Education in Europe’.

The Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies is offering two internships on a full-time basis in spring 2019.

In early January, Joanne van der Leun (Dean of the Leiden Law School), Ton Liefaard (Program Director of the Advanced Studies in International Children’s Rights, LL.M), and Anette van Sandwijk (Head Bureau International Education) visited China.

Leiden University won five prizes at the 10th edition of the IBA International Criminal Court (ICC) Moot Court Competition – English edition of 2023, including Best Regional Team of Europe.

Aleydis Nissen was awarded the René Cassin Thesis Prize 2021. The René Cassin Foundation - International Institute of Human Rights organises the competition. This Prize is awarded to the best PhD theses on human rights.

On 21 April 2022, Cleveringa Professor Jan Grabowski visited Leiden. The theme of his visit was the role of law and historiography in shaping collective memories.

Op 10 juni 2024 heeft de Staatscommissie Rechtsstaat, waarvan universitair docent staats- en bestuursrecht Fatma Çapkurt deel uitmaakt, haar adviesrapport aangeboden aan burgers en de drie staatsmachten.

On 13 April, an expert meeting to discuss the doctoral thesis of Eduardo Arenas Catalán was held at Leiden Law School. The discussion, chaired by Aart Hendriks, Professor of Health Law at Leiden Law School, included the contributions from Javier Couso Salas, Professor at Universidad Diego Portales and…

There’s a trend going around within administrative law: submitting court documents late to make things as difficult as possible for the opposing party. As Mr. magazine reports, Tom Barkhuysen, Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law and partner in administrative law at Stibbe, argues in the…

Houdt de rechtbank tijdens een echtscheiding wel voldoende rekening met de ervaringen van een kind? Onderzoek van Villa Pinedo toont aan dat kinderen vaak vrezen het verkeerde te zeggen tegen rechters. Hoogleraar jeugdrecht Mariëlle Bruning praatte erover met NRC.

On November 17, 2017, Professor Simone van der Hof gave a duo lecture with her colleague Professor Eva Lievens from Ghent University during the 'Children and Digital Rights' conference at the Information Law and Policy Centre, which is part of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (University of L…

On 30 November 2023, Florian Theissen successfully defended his PhD thesis, 'Sincerely Believing in Freedom'.

On the occasion of Euroscience Open Forum 2022, Professor Attiya Waris (Director of Research and Enterprise and Professor of Fiscal Law and Policy in Eastern Africa, University of Nairobi, Kenya), Professor Irma Mosquera Valderrama (Professor of Global Tax Governance, Lead Researcher GLOBTAXGOV ERC…

Inspectors at the Dutch Tax and Customs Administration can require people to provide more information relating to their tax returns. Esther Huiskers-Stoop from the Tax Law department investigated the rules in place to protect us when we are required to provide information to the tax authorities.

On the 28th of April 2021, The Europa Institute welcomed Mr. Menno Cox, Policy Officer at the European Commission (DG CONNECT).

On 20 and 22 November Rick Lawson, Professor of European Law at Leiden Law School, gave lectures at Cleveringa events in Bratislava and Budapest.

From 2-4 November Jorrit Rijpma taught the students of the Master in European Law at the European Public Law Institute in Athens.

On March 31st – April 1st, the Association for the Study of Law, Culture and the Humanities (ASLHC) will hold its twentieth annual conference at Stanford Law School.

On Wednesday 1 July 2020, Niek Strohmaier was awarded his PhD on the cognitive biases of financial backers and legal professionals in the context of the impending insolvency of companies.

Joni Reef was among those present at the opening of Expertise Centre KIND in 's-Hertogenbosch on Thursday 22 November 2018. She spoke to Dutch newspaper Brabants Dagblad afterwards.

What would the Dutch cabinet look like if it consisted of academic experts? De Volkskrant explored this by assembling a hypothetical cabinet. Miranda Boone, Professor of Criminology and Comparative Penology, was appointed as the Minister of Justice and Security.

The Dutch Tax and Customs Authority is planning to start enforcing income tax and contribution obligations again following a moratorium lasting several years. The tax authority is doing this in a move to combat sham self-employment; a dossier that continues to be a huge obstacle for the Dutch House…

‘A tax crusader’... that’s how Ferd Grapperhaus, former Professor of Tax Law at Leiden University and father of the former Minister of Justice and Security, described himself. In his biography of Grapperhaus, Assistant Professor Rens Pieterse explains that he saw tax as a contribution to society.

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 26 April 2017, Melanie Fink, PhD candidate at Leiden University and the University of Vienna, participated in a round-table discussion on ‘The “agencification” of EU foreign and defence policy: what role for the EU home affairs agencies abroad?’

On 7 November 2024, an ESIL Joint Colloquium, organised by the European Society of International Law (ESIL) Interest Group ‘The EU as a Global Actor’ (IG EUGLOBAL), in partnership with the Interest Group on Migration and Refugee Law (IG MigRefLaw), took place on the topic ‘The EU as an (Imperfect) Global…