The West is considering military intervention in Libya to stop the rise of IS. The question is: what does IS want in Libya and what can and will the West do about it?

From self-driving cars to innovative drug development, artificial intelligence (AI) is going to fundamentally change our lives in a variety of ways.

Research project ‘Quantification, Administrative Capacity, and Democracy (QUAD)’ has a vacancy for a postdoc.

China’s internet giants like Alibaba and Tencent go global. However, Alibaba shares its data with the Chinese state. The state links the Chinese social credit system to consumer’s profiles. What if Alibaba takes over the market?

The AI research in the area of peace, justice and security at each of the three universities in Zuid-Holland complements the AI research being performed by the other two. Three researchers explain. Part one in a series of five about themes that the three universities’ AI research covers.

Citizens and government collaborate increasingly, for exampe in neighborhood prevention teams. Assistant professor Carola van Eijk looks into these kinds of cooperation. Today she will hear if she will be awarded the important prize in the public administration field.

To support interdisciplinary research on today's world-scale changes and governing challenges, the GTGC programme awards a number of seed grants to scholars at Leiden University collaborating across different faculties and institutes.

22 November 2018.

On Friday afternoon 22 April President Joko Widodo of Indonesia was welcomed at the gate of Leiden’s Academy Building by Indonesian students. Inside, the President and five ministers were welcomed by Rector Prof. Carel Stolker.

During the colloquium ‘Minorities and the Criminal Justice System’, Jasmina Mačkić (lecturer at the Europa Institute) presented some of the research results from her PhD thesis ‘Proving Discriminatory Violence at the European Court of Human Rights’.

On Wednesday 27 January, EU Careers, an organisation that on behalf of the Dutch government offers assistance with job applications at EU institutions, and the Europa Institute organised a Q&A session for the students of the LLM European Law on the Blue Book Traineeship at the European Commission.

Prof. Julia Sloth-Nielsen has been awarded the Schim van der Loeff grant by the Leiden University Fund to conduct research on unaccompanied migrant children in Zambia.

As the flagship journal of the National Academy of Sciences USA, PNAS publishes several special features each year highlighting topics that are expected to engage the interest of the journal’s broad readership. Archaeologist Wil Roebroeks was invited by the Editors of PNAS to contribute a paper on the…

Researchers from the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL) and the University of Ghana are organising the first-ever pan-African summer school for deaf academics from the African continent (from 1 – 15 August).

'There are far too few networking events for young scholars, even though they are eager to attend them;' states Judi Mesman, Dean of Leiden University College (LUC). On Wednesday 7 March, Judi Mesman organised the 'Interdisciplinary Networking Event for Young Scholars', a networking event specifically…

Egypt serves as a strategic gateway to Africa and the Middle East. For that reasons, Luc Sels, President of the Executive Board and a delegation visited the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo (NVIC) at the end of April. This resulted in new agreements on research and student exchanges.

Dr. Yannick van den Brink’s PhD thesis, titled ‘Pre-trial detention in the Dutch juvenile justice system’, has been awarded the FJR Prize 2018.

Ukraine has filed an innovative claim against Russia at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Ukraine asked the court to rule that it has not committed genocide and that a war initiated based on a false genocide claim was unlawful. Larissa van den Herik, Professor of Public International Law, discussed…

A team of researchers at Leiden University’s Europa Institute authored an extensive study on the potential for a Climate and Energy Union within the EU constitutional framework. The study was published by the European Parliament in December 2024.

Dr Mamadou Hébié, Associate Professor of International Law at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, served last week as legal counsel in the world’s first advisory proceedings concerning climate change before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), on the one hand, and…

On 11 February 2019 the Women in International Law Network, established in 2017 as an informal network for midlevel to senior female officials, experts, advisers and academics working in international law in the Netherlands, organised a panel discussion and the book launch of ‘Frontex and Human Rights’,…

Lecture, This Time for Africa series

Mojan Samadi obtained her PhD in 2020 in Leiden and has since remained at the university as an assistant professor. Her research currently focuses on gender and criminal law, with a key question being how criminal law should address femicide.

Can politicians say whatever they want? What is the limit and when can the Public Prosecution Service act? PhD candidate Jip Stam examined the limits of free speech in criminal law. 'Intervening too soon can threaten democracy and the rule of law,' he warns.

When many people think of slavery, they think of the translatlantic trade that took place between Africa, the Americas and the Caribbean.

The Dutch Michelle Sweering became the best math girl in the world at the International Mathematical Olympiad in South Africa. She is the only girl who won a golden medal.

The research article ‘The life history of an enslaved African’ is one of the top 20 read Archaeometry articles in the period of January 2017 to December 2018.

Starting 1 January 2024, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates and Iran have officially joined the BRICS trade bloc, as confirmed by South Africa's Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor.

Joëlle Kraaijeveld has won the Jan Brouwer Thesis Prize for history with her master's thesis.

‘Children’s rights are somewhat of a poor relation’, says Professor of Law and Health Mirjam Sombroek-van Doorm. In her inaugural lecture, she will emphasise how more attention needs to be paid to children’s rights in current thinking on law and health.

Environmental scientist Rutger Hoekstra addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations on 12 April. And that’s quite a big thing to do. How do you get there as a scientist? And, more importantly, what was his message? In eight questions, Rutger explains what he does and why.

PhD defence

A pregnant woman from Drenthe will lose her baby directly after it is born. A juvenile court has already ruled during her pregnancy that the infant will go to a foster family. The court believes that the child would risk physical neglect.

The KNAW Early Career Award 2019 has been awarded to lecturer in children’s rights Stephanie Rap. She receives the award for her research into international children's rights.

Dr. Moritz Jesse, associate professor for European Law gave two presentations at the annual conference of the Council for European Studies, which took place in the city of Chicago, end of March 2018.

In an appeal case, an employee of a care organisation in Nijmegen who was shown the door because of her criticism about the coronavirus voiced on LinkedIn, has had her dismissal reviewed. The court in Arnhem ruled that the employee had crossed a line and that her employer was entitled to dismiss her…

The tax loophole revealed last year by the ‘Financieele Dagblad’ turns out to have much greater consequences than expected. Jan van de Streek, Professor of Tax Law, spoke to the FD: 'This concerns a tax leakage of major proportions'.

Book talk

On 17 March 2022, Ilke Göçmen from Ankara University organised a Conference within the framework of a Jean Monnet Chair on ‘Legal Issues in Turkey – European Union Relations’.

Eline van Slijpe wrote her Master of Philosophy thesis on intergenerational justice: does the current generation have obligations towards future generations? With this thesis she won the biannual J.C. Baak Prize.

Study information

The Dutch asylum application centre in Ter Apel is overburdened, an issue that is currently a prominent feature in the Dutch media. In podcast De Verbranders, PhD students Neske Baerwaldt and Wiebe Ruijtenberg engage in dialogue, and use different angles to examine themes related to migration, borders…

Annetje Ottow, president of the Executive Board of Leiden University, has been the new chair of the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus (LDE) strategic alliance for just two months. What does she want to achieve during her two-year chairmanship?

Hayat Essakkati grew up in the Netherlands and studied Public Administration in Leiden. She started her own company in Morocco, the country where her parents were born. 'Moroccan culture and religion are not as conservative as people in the Netherlands often think.'

As of 1 January 2018 Irma Mosquera will be appointed as Associate Professor at the Institute of Tax Law and Economics of Leiden University.

Leiden has an international reputation as a stronghold of knowledge about cultures worldwide. Under the umbrella name of LeidenGlobal, Leiden University, the National Museum of Antiquities, the Natioial Museum of Ethnology and five research institutes are working together to disseminate this knowledge…

Aisha Hassan came to the Netherlands when she was two months old. Her mother had fled Somalia and made a new home here. Aisha doesn't remember much about that time, but her mother’s stories about Somalia ignited a lifelong interest in developing countries. ‘Her stories have always fascinated me.’