The drafting of a handbook that serves as the first guide to European law in the area of children's rights, taking into account the case law of the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), as well as the decisions of the European Committee of Social Rights…

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.

Large numbers of children all over the world face significant health risks, such as infectious and chronic diseases, malnutrition, injuries and the consequences of natural disasters, protracted armed conflicts and poverty.

Videos shared on social media have become important evidence to hold perpetrators of human rights violations accountable. What does this increased use of digital open source evidence mean for the quality of international human rights accountability? Through an innovative experimental design, this project…

Which challenges exist for girls to effectuate their right to education and specifically getting access to education?

Develop a tool to assess land tenure, access to land and, and land tenure conflict in Timor-Leste

The euro crisis of 2010 has shown that the Eurozone lacks economic cohesion and that EU fiscal integration is needed for a stable euro. But can this integration exist without clashing with the national constitutional interests of the Member States? Frederik Behre looked into this matter in his PhD-thesis…

The Dutch State is set to challenge The Hague Court of Appeal's ruling that the Netherlands must stop exporting arms to Israel at the Supreme Court. The government believes that foreign policy falls within the political domain and not within the judiciary. Geerten Boogaard, Professor of Constitutional…

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…

Do people actually understand the constitution? This is what Jelle But, PhD candidate at Constitutional and administrative law, wondered. To find out, he conducted a survey among 1333 respondents. His research shows that lawyers and other legal professionals actually do not have a better understanding…

On 3 December 2019, Meda Couzens defended her thesis 'The application of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child by national courts'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. T. Liefaard and Prof. J.J. Sloth-Nielsen.

In this article, Meier & Nadler suggest that while non-citizen enfranchisement boosts participation across all citizens, citizens with immigration backgrounds are more reactive to the NCV rights in terms of higher turnout. In this way, the paper adds a critical nuance to individual-based explanations…

The Sackler Distinguished Lecture Series on Human Rights was established at Leiden University through an endowment given by Dr. Raymond R. Sackler and his wife, Beverly, international philanthropists with a commitment to supporting scientific research. The lectures mark the annual celebration of International…

Does foreign aid promote human rights?

175 years ago, the Netherlands took great strides towards parliamentary democracy with a revamped Constitution. Where does the Constitution stand today?

Many dangerous diseases such as COVID-19, Ebola and Q fever have jumped from animals to humans. But it is not only because of these diseases that we should include animals in our health policy, but also because of their right to health.

On Thursday 20 May 2021, Tania Li delivered the annual Van Vollenhoven Lecture.

'Bestaanszekerheid' (socio-economic security) is the buzzword in the Netherlands and the magic word in the current election campaign. The King also dropped the word in his Speech from the Throne on Budget Day.

Zuzana Vikarská joined the Europa Institute in January 2021 as a visiting researcher within the re:constitution fellowship - a new programme funded by Stiftung Mercator comprising 20 fellows who have their own project. The fellows meet regularly to discuss work in progress and engage in academic mobility…

In secondary school, homophobic language is common, even in the Netherlands where there is high acceptance of homosexuality in the adult population. Adolescents especially in lower educational levels have prevailingly negative attitudes towards their lesbian and gay peers. Peer education with its participatory…

This summer school focuses on the emergence of sexual orientation, gender identity (SOGI) and intersex issues in different areas of international law, such as human rights law, refugee law, international economic law, and international criminal law. Further information for this summer course will be…

On 27-28 January 2022, Leiden University’s interdisciplinary seed grant programme ‘Beyond Anthropocentric Interests and Values? Human Rights and Climate Change’ hosted a conference on human rights and climate change.

All children have rights, and so foster children also have rights. But when these rights are not observed, there are not many options available to foster children to assert their rights. PhD defence on 8 October 2020.

On Wednesday, September 27th the mayor of Leiden, Henri Lenferink, gave a lecture to the master's-degree students of Child Law, Criminal Law and Constitutional and administrative law.

The number of cases of coronavirus in the Netherlands is on the rise. Some mayors are now calling for measures that are more far-reaching than those at present. For example, they want it to be possible to enforce measures behind the front door. Would that be allowed?

On 21 April 2016, Leiden University College The Hague, in collaboration with The Hague Institute for Global Justice and the T.M.C. Asser Institute, hosted a book launch and panel discussion for Dr. Joris Larik’s new monograph “Foreign Policy Objectives in European Constitutional Law”, which has recently…

Recently, the German Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) issued its second preliminary reference to the Court of Justice of the European Union. Following its earlier reference on the European Central Bank’s bond buying programme Outright Monetary Transactions, the German court now…

On Friday January 13 between 13.00 - 15.00 (room C 1.04 of the Old Observatory) there will be another Leiden Socio-Legal Lecture, entitled 'Constitutional Ethnography, Counter-Constitutions, and the Study of Form, Sediment and Trajectory'.

In the present-day United States, to what degree(s) are far-right men and women similar and/or dissimilar in their motivating factors for engaging in far-right social movement activism?

During the coronavirus years 2020 and 2021, Dutch citizens became poorer, more anxious, less free and more rebellious. The State gained more power and entered the lives of citizens in all manner of ways to protect their health. Only recently did the State give citizens their freedom back – in part.

This book presents the results of a research about the Islamic courts of Cianjur in West Java, and Bulukumba in South Sulawesi and the role they play in local divorce practices.

In his blog, Armin suggests two legal tools that may jointly help avoid a hard Brexit: delayed exit and decreasing membership.

Managing scarcity to serve the public interest is a classic government task. An important way to execute this task is by allocating individual rights that are only available in limited quantities, such as CO2 emission allowances, gambling licences, subsidies, radio frequencies, public contracts and…

A civil servant employed by the municipality of The Hague was cause for discussion after taking part in an Extinction Rebellion protest. Only under additional conditions could the employee in question stay on at the municipality. She decided to resign. According to Barend Barentsen, Professor of Labour…

This book is an examination of why and how the elective principle, already established in Transylvanian and Polish political culture in the late medieval period, was transformed in the early elections of the 1570s.

Leiden University's Centre for Professional Learning (CPL) and the Montesquieu Institute are jointly launching the ‘Academie voor de Rechtsstaat’ (Academy for the Rule of Law). With this initiative, they intend to offer a course providing in-depth knowledge and insight into the basic principles of the…

Research conducted by the University of Leiden and the University of Curaçao found that the rights of undocumented children in Curaçao, mostly from Venezuela, are severely under threat, which does not trigger rigorous actions by the Curaçaoan and Dutch authorities.

In the aftermath of the child care benefits scandal in the Netherlands, politicians in The Hague turned to self-reflection and, as a result, the call for the introduction of a constitutional court is growing louder. Pieter Omtzigt, a popular conservative politician and leader of the new party New Social…

Nuran Buket Cengiz defended her thesis on 13 June 2017

States, we are told, have monopolized the legal right to wage war since the seventeenth century and this arrangement has provided some basic stability in international relations. But is this really true? This project challenges this classic account and opens the way for rethinking the contemporary laws…

The book 'The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child' is the result of the international academic conference – ’25 Years CRC’ – which was held in November 2014 in Leiden on the occasion of the 25th birthday of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Houben and Ten Oever investigate the relationship between public service obligations in EU law (PSOs) and human rights. PSOs served mainly as a correction to free market forces and did not originate from a human rights perspective.

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 the 1st of November 2017, Ingrid Leijten hosted an expert-seminar titled ‘Tailored Provisions, Social Rights Compliance?’ (‘Maatwerk als Mensenrecht?’).

Although official law generally conceives of personal injury victims as individual rights holders, the actual experience of physical injury and its consequences is relational. Indeed, many researchers in the global North as well as the global South have contended that the very concept of the Self should…

Via expedited proceedings at Leeuwarden Court of Appeal, a mother is trying to impose a relatively new treatment for her 15-year-old daughter’s eating disorder. The girl is suffering from anorexia nervosa and if she does not receive urgent treatment which the girl herself supports, there is a chance…

Archives were a common target during the Second World War, and hundreds suffered damages. Among these archival losses, the losses to medieval manuscript collections stand out.

In the last weeks, ASEAN published different Statements about the human rights situation in Myanmar and the Democratic People´s Republic of Korea (DPRK).