Klimaatverandering, geopolitieke spanningen en botsende belangen in het Arctisch gebied dwingen tot hernieuwde aandacht voor handhaving en rechtvaardigheid. Hilde Woker, gespecialiseerd in het recht van de zee, spreekt in een uitzending van Kennismakers Radio Sleutelstad over dit actuele onderwerp

On 4 and 5 September, Leiden Law School hosted a special conference that brought together around sixty participants from the Netherlands and abroad to discuss the future of economic, social, and cultural rights – rights that touch upon everyone’s daily life: housing, education, healthcare, food, and…

Meloni’s plan om asielzoekers in Albanië op te vangen blijkt door juridische complicaties niet haalbaar. Mark Klaassen, universitair docent migratierecht, bespreekt de kwestie in RTL nieuws.

The Max van der Stoel Human Rights Award is presented every two years on 10 December (Human Rights Day) in recognition of outstanding academic works in the field of international human rights.

Rodrigues was asked to comment on the intention of certain Dutch political parties to examine whether the Netherlands, together with Denmark, could accommodate asylum seekers outside the EU, possibly in Rwanda.

Moritz Jesse, associate professor European Law at the Europa Institute Leiden, delivered a lecture on the Social integration of third-country nationals.

A team from Leiden University Law School participated at the 30th edition of the Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot Court competition and received an honourable mention for the Werner Melis Award for Best Memorandum for Respondent.

The response of international organizations to the problems of cross-border death and gift taxation needs to be revisited, according to PhD candidate Vassilis Dafnomilis. PhD defence on 3 June 2021.

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.

Film screening + Q&A

Professor Sjoerd Douma has been named the top lecturer on Coursera, the best-known platform for online courses. Students gave him an average score of 9.8 - almost unheard of for a lecturer in International Tax Law.

Tax scandals, like the Panama Papers, the Paradise Papers, and the Pandora Papers, have made tax avoidance by large multinationals and rich individuals a major topic of public debate. Policymakers are pushed to close tax loopholes and reform the global tax system. But this is no easy task.

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.

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

Jorrit Rijpma responds in Dutch newspaper the Volkskrant to attention surrounding the reintroduction of border controls in the Schengen area.

Lecture

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…

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.

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.’

This dissertation explores how Large Language Models (LLMs) can effectively and responsibly contribute to complex decision-making processes. By combining AI and human intelligence, Hybrid Intelligence (HI) emerges, allowing the strengths of both humans and machines to be utilized.

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.’

As a lawyer, how can you contribute to ensuring that the best interests of the child play a greater role in immigration law? That question was the topic of asylum lawyer Bart Toemen's guest lecture in the course ‘Kind en migratie’ (child and migration), given in the master’s programme ‘Jeugdrecht’ (Child…

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…

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…

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.

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’.

De groeiende militaire aanwezigheid rond Groenland moet veiligheid bieden, maar tegelijkertijd vergroot het de klimaatdruk op het kwetsbare eiland en zet het geopolitieke spanningen verder op scherp. Hilde Woker, universitair docent internationaal recht en expert in het zeerecht, ging in gesprek met…

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.

Dr. Moritz Jesse, Associate Professor of European Union Law at the Europa Institute Leiden, presented about the legal transition of migrants from outsiders to insiders at the 26th International Conference of Europeanists, which took place in Madrid in June.

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…

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.

A controversial comment made by Mona Keijzer of the Dutch BBB party (Farmer-Citizen Movement) calling for the return of Ukrainian refugees and Ukrainian conscription-age men to safe areas of Ukraine has sparked fierce criticism. Mark Klaassen, Associate Professor of Immigration Law and a member of the…

In the Netherlands dozens of Eritrean minor refugees are wandering the streets, even though minor asylum seekers have a right to asylum.

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’.

Vasiliki Kosta acted as a speaker during the Dutch-German Science Days held on 26 and 27 November 2025, on the overarching theme ‘Academia in times of global crises: How to deal with the effects on our systems? What can we learn from each other and what can we do together?’.

PhD defence

Conflicting reports about an airstrike on a school in Iran are causing international concern. Helen Duffy, Professor of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights was asked to clarify states obligations under international law. In Euro News she called in for a swift and independent investigat…

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.

The past two years, Laura van der Knaap and Professor Karsten Lambers worked on creating open teaching materials on agent-based modeling, funded by Erasmus+ and in collaboration with Danish, Irish and Dutch partners. Programming is an important skill involved in this, which is often seen as intimidating…