On 9 November, Jonathan Hak defended the thesis 'Non-textual evidence in international criminal prosecutions: discovering the best practices for audiovisual materials in a digital age'. The doctoral research was supervised by Carsten Stahn and Jens Iverson.

On 22 June, Najib Amin defended the thesis 'State-building, lawmaking, and criminal justice in Afghanistan: a case study of the prison system’s legal mandate, and the rehabilitation programmes in Pul-e-charkhi prison'. The doctoral research was supervised by Jan Michiel Otto and Pauline Schuyt.

On 19 juni 2018 Matthew Gillett defended his doctoral thesis ‘Prosecuting environmental harm before the international criminal court’. His supervisor is prof. dr. L.J. van den Herik.

What can criminal courts do when the course of justice is obstructed? Countries such as England and Wales apply the instrument contempt of court, which enables the court to act according to criminal law in such a case. Could that work in the Netherlands too? PhD defence on 18 December.

Hoe ver mogen demonstranten gaan? En moet de politie ingrijpen als iemand zich vastketent? Jeroen ten Voorde, hoogleraar straf- en procesrecht, sprak met Omroep Gelderland over het demonstratierecht: ‘Ik zou niet meteen zeggen dat het strafbaar is.’

On 1 March 2023, the Dutch Safety Board (Onderzoeksraad Voor De Veiligheid, OVV) published its report on the protection provided by the Dutch security services and lessons learned from three cases. The OVV was highly critical of the use of key witnesses and the protection offered to them. Jan Crijns,…

Miriam Cohen defended her PhD dissertation entitled “Reparations for International Crimes and the development of a Civil Dimension of International Criminal Justice” on 28 June 2017. She wrote her thesis under the supervision of Professor L.J. van den Herik and Professor C. Stahn.

On 18 September 2019, Huw Llewellyn defended his thesis 'An Institutional Perspective on the United Nations Criminal Tribunals: Governance, Independence and Impartiality'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. N.M. Blokker and Prof. L.J. van den Herik.

The section Civil Procedure Law offers education in the bachelor and master fase of the Law program.

On September 13 and 14 Utrecht University, Leiden University and Maastricht University are organizing a two day conference on Procedural rights in criminal proceedings in the European Union, offering a venue for practitioners and young scholars to exchange experiences and ideas on this subject matter.…

On 27 February 1976, two men wearing motorcycle helmets and carrying loaded guns ring the door of temping agency Cito. A security van has just delivered cash. The suspect later claims in court that he and his friend were just doing a ‘dress rehearsal’ – preparing ahead in other words, but not an actual…

In the early modern period women played a prominent role in crime. At times they even made up half of all defendants. Female criminality was a typically urban phenomenon. Why do we find so many women before the Dutch criminal courts?

The Netherlands Public Prosecution Service has demanded that Gideon van Meijeren, Dutch Member of Parliament in the Forum for Democracy (FvD) party, be handed 200 hours of community service for inciting violence. Marloes van Noorloos, Associate Professor of Criminal Law, discusses when a comment turns…

On 9 January 2019, Marieke Wierda defended her thesis 'The Local Impact of a Global Court: Assessing the Impact of the International Criminal Court in Situation Countries'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. dr. C. Stahn en Prof. dr. L.J. van den Herik.

Since its inception, a central preoccupation of and for the International Criminal Court (ICC) has been the nature of its relationship to national jurisdictions. Complementarity—the idea that the Court is intended to supplement, not supplant, national jurisdictions—has been the dominant juridical logic…

Leiden Law Cast is a podcast made by Leiden Law School, Leiden University, for everyone who wants to learn more about current legal issues.

The Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology’s ‘Vulnerable Groups and Inequality’ research project draws on a number of disciplines.

Konstantinos Zoumpoulakis, Research Assistant at the Institute of Criminal Law & Criminology, has written a report on this conference

Many adults and juveniles who are in prosecuted in criminal courts also have financial problems. This applies to almost one third of probation cases and around 60% of all prisoners.

Should criminal law have a greater role in protecting this democracy? In his inaugural lecture, Professor Jeroen ten Voorde urges caution.

On 12 September 2019, Judge Chile Eboe-Osuji, President of the International Criminal Court (ICC), delivered a lecture on Customary International Criminal Law and Head of State Immunity to open the academic year for the Advanced LL.M. Programmes in Public International Law & International Dispute Settlement…

Grotius Centre in The Hague is located on the doorstep of international criminal courts and tribunals. In our teaching, we seek to benefit from this unique environment. Practitioners come to share their expertise in dialogue with our students, and we try to provide a platform where current practices…

Dutch online news platform Mr. Online interviewed external PhD student Sjoerd Lopik about the development of environmental criminal law in the Netherlands and about his experiences combining his job as a researcher with his work in the legal practice.

Professor of Criminal Law Marc Kessler proposes starting an experiment in criminal law cases: replacing parts of police interview reports with an audio-visual recording. His inaugural lecture is on 28 October 2016.

On Monday 30 May 2016, the Assistant High Commissioner for Protection at UNHCR, Mr. Volker Türk, delivered the Keynote Address at the Advanced Course on International Criminal Justice, Migration and Human Trafficking at the Peace Palace in The Hague.

This interdisciplinary conference, to be held on 26-27 June 2017, will bring together lawyers interested in EU law and criminal law, criminologists, political scientists, and philosophers to jointly reflect on the development of the EU's criminal policy.

This week, Leiden University celebrates the fifteenth year of its world-class International Criminal Law Summer School. The International Criminal Law Summer School has convened every year since the creation of the International Criminal Court, guiding scholars and practitioners in this rapidly developing…

The Faculty of Law has five institutes:

This PhD dissertation examines international responsibility for the crime of aggression from a public international law perspective. Under customary international law, as well as the amendments to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court adopted in the Review Conference in Kampala in 2010,…

Tom Buitelaar is an Assistant Professor in the War, Peace & Justice programme of the Institute of Security and Global Affairs. This paper discusses four important challenges to the involvement of UN peace operations in international criminal justice: its effects on host state relations, peace and justice…

Mental health issues in the Dutch court: The criminal court as a border guard between the regular Mental Health System and the Criminal Justice system?

The programme structure of the specialization International Criminal Law can be found on this page. The programme consists of several courses.

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.