Do you have to be able to say everything on Twitter and Facebook? Is Instagram morally obliged to remove photos from attacks? Should we allow the terrorist group to recruit new members on the internet?

From Incident to Precedent

On 10 June 2021, Merinda Stewart defended her thesis 'Freedom of Overflight: A Study of Coastal State Jurisdiction in International Airspace'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. P.M.J. Mendes de Leon en Prof. J.J. Rijpma.

DNA carries various forms of information. Out of these forms of information the most well-known is classical genetic information.

On 30 November, Florian Theissen defended the thesis 'Sincerely believing in freedom: a reconstruction and comparison of the interpretation of the freedom of religion and belief on the Canadian Supreme Court, the South African Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights'. The doctoral…

Press freedom in Indonesia is still under pressure, despite the demise of Soeharto’s regime in 1998

Recently Cambridge University Press published dr. Jan Osters monograph “Media Freedom as a Fundamental Right”.

The gripping story of a collective passion for freedom that shook the world.

On 12 November Ingrid Leijten was a guest on Dutch NOS NPO Radio 1 programme Met het Oog op Morgen. She was asked to speak about the right to freedom of expression.

What does academic freedom mean? And how do we give shape to it in Leiden? The Academic Freedom Core Team considered these questions and presented its final report on 17 June.

The Europa Institute has invited Dorjana Bojanovska from Macedonia to visit Leiden Law School to conduct her master thesis research from 6 March - 31 March 2017. Dorjana is a student at the Comparative Constitutional Law program at the Legal Studies Department of the Central European University. The…

How do borderland dwellers living along militarised frontiers negotiate regimes of state security and their geopolitical location in everyday life? What might 'freedom' mean to those who do not resist captivity engendered by borders? Focusing on the predicaments of a double-minority, Radhika Gupta examines…

On 22 November 2018, Els De Busser spoke at a panel during the conference

This thesis focuses on the concepts of freedo and fixity as two central topics of my artistic research. I present, analyze. and contextualize four of my works which have explicit links to fleedom and fixify and which demonstrate the dynamic interrelationship between the two.

In the light of the fragility of current liberal democracies, this dissertation aims to contribute to rethinking political order by reconstructing Hegel’s account in the Philosophy of Right.

The Press Freedom Monitor is set to be presented during this year’s World Press Freedom Day celebrations on 3 May. To mark this occasion, the interactive media museum Beeld & Geluid in The Hague will publish a three-part podcast series.

On 5 May we celebrate freedom, a basic human right that should not be taken for granted. We asked international students and staff what it means to them.

In ‘Dimensions of Free Speech’, Devrim Kabasakal Badamchi (Leiden University Institute of Political Science) offers a new theoretical framework for free speech by critically analysing the major justifications for free speech. Kabasakal Badamchi argues for a justification: namely the double-grounded…

This project applies a social-historical approach to examine and contrast various groups of African-American slave refugees who sought freedom within North America between 1800 and 1860. It innovatively distinguishes between different “spaces of freedom” for runaway slaves, namely sites of formal, semi-formal,…

In Freedom on the Offensive, William Michael Schmidli illuminates how the Reagan administration's embrace of democracy promotion was a defining development in US foreign relations in the late twentieth century.

This is the 2017 paperback release of William Michael Schmidli's The Fate of Freedom Elsewhere, which won the 2013 Foreign Affairs Magazine Best Book of the Year.

On 3 May, World Press Freedom Day was held and the Dutch 2022 'Persvrijheidsmonitor' was presented. The safety of journalists in 2022 was the most important theme in the area of press freedom in the Netherlands. Tarlach McGonagle, Professor of Medial Law & Information Society in Leiden, and Otto Volgenant,…

A new paperback edition of Brian Heffernan's book Freedom and the Fifth Commandment. Catholic priests and political violence in Ireland, 1919-21 was published by Manchester University Press in September 2016.

Baroque flautist Jed Wentz followed two years of dancing classes in order to develop the right feeling for the gestures required for the Baroque French opera genre ‘tragédie en musique’. In his dissertation, the links between gesture affect and rhythmic freedom in the performance of the tragédie en…

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…

Professor Jan Willem Erisman is happy with the freedom at our University. But frameworks are needed, he believes. That is why he makes a proposal for such a framework from the perspective of his own profession. In fact, he makes a proposal for a wonderful ambition for Leiden University.

NETHATE is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) project seeking to investigate the roots, societal impact and mitigation strategies of hate in offline and online foras.

Academic freedom is essential for good scientific practice, but there are limits: scientists and scholars from all domains must always seek a proper balance between academic freedom and independence on the one hand, and social responsibility on the other hand.

Online platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, and X (formerly Twitter) have become part and parcel of everyday media use. Journalists incorporate posts from politicians into newspaper reports, scientists share their insights in short posts or videos, and the judiciary uses social media to explain their…

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

On 15 July 2019 Hans-Martien ten Napel started a new series on freedom of religion or belief for the London School of Economics research-led interdisciplinary Religion and Global Society Blog.

Professor Kees Waaldijk presented the report on the LawsAndFamilies Database to Pearl Dykstra, member of the High Level Group of Scientific Advisors of the European Commission on 25 April. This comparative study shows that in European countries same-sex partners are increasingly gaining equal rights.…

On 9 June 2023, the workshop on ‘Academic Freedom and its Philosophical Underpinnings in EU law’ took place at the Academy Building, Leiden. It was organized in the framework of the Vidi research project The EU fundamental right to ‘freedom of the art and sciences': exploring the limits on the commercialisation…

On 26 June, Dr Vicky Kosta and Dr Olga Ceran visited the University of Bologna, Italy, to present the Vidi research project ‘The EU fundamental right to

Escalating tensions in South China Sea have epitomized US–China relations for nearly a decade. Warning signs of a possible collision between a rising China and steadfast US, bring to light the need to think about ways that can halt and reverse the intensification of their confrontational moves.

The theme of this special anniversary, as well as of this year's celebrations, is Ahead of times. After all, for centuries now we have been directing our gaze at the future.

As of September 2023, Leiden University is a new host of the Research Network on Academic Freedom.

Authorities in Denmark and Sweden are examining whether it is possible to ban Quran burning following recent incidents. These have caused tension in many Islamic countries as well as in the countries where they occurred.

Participation in research programmes