In March 2019 a new Computer Crime Act took effect in the Netherlands. As a result, Dutch police now have extensive powers to tackle cybercrime. Innocent citizens could be adversely affected if these new powers are not used with restraint, Bart Custers (Head of Research at eLaw - Center for Law and…

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

A fragment of a human skull discovered in sediments extracted from the bottom of the North Sea, 15 km off the coast off the Netherlands, has been identified as belonging to the extinct Neandertal group.

Leiden University opened its doors on Leiden Museum Night, with a whole host of things to see and do at the Academy Building, Hortus botanicus and Old Observatory. Take a look at the photos and see.

While the first votes of the American elections are being counted, PhD candidate Tessa van Buchem appeared as a guest on Radio 1. During the radio broadcast, she discussed the US Supreme Court: ‘The judges are seen as politicians in gowns.’

Fourteen transnational consortia of which seven with Dutch researchers have received funding from the European NORFACE network within the theme ‘Democratic governance in a turbulent age’. Two of them are FGGA researchers Natascha van der Zwan and Caelesta Braun.

The Europa Instituut is honoured to announce that two Leiden alumni received awards for their master theses at the annual meeting of the Netherlands Association for European Law (NVER) in Utrecht.

Religions involve belief in the unbelievable: in evil spirits causing disease, in souls surviving death, and in gods punishing wrongdoers and blessing the just. Cognitive studies suggest that humans are predisposed to speculate about fate and divine agency, but support from so-called ‘plausibility structures’…

On 21 January 2021, Fachrizal Afandi defended his thesis ‘Maintaining Order: Public Prosecutors in Post-Authoritarian Countries, the case of Indonesia’. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. A.W. Bedner and Prof. J.H. Crijns.

Starting on Thursday 16 May 2019, the Faculty of Archaeology features a new mini exhibition, ‘Archaeology&ME’. Ten showcases address the public’s connection with archaeology. They show how archaeology matters to them and how it constitutes a bridge between the past, present and future.

Yesterday, the European Commission presented its long-anticipated proposal for an AI regulation. After the Commission had outlined the European legislation at the start of 2020 in its white paper on artificial intelligence ‘A European approach to excellence and trust’, a concrete proposal for a European…

Dr Suliman Ibrahim of the Van Vollenhoven Institute (VVI) will conduct research on problems concerning real property in Libya. The project is commissioned by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Last week, the 12th Annual Conference of the European Society of International Law (ESIL) took place on the topic of How International Law Works in Times of Crisis. The conference was hosted by the Riga Graduate School of Law in cooperation with the Latvian Constitutional Court. The conference intended…

During the SoLaR Young Researchers Platform, which took place on 14 March 2018 in Maastricht, Clara van Dam presented her ongoing research on the role of Habitat guidance documents in the Dutch legal order.

In the Netherlands approximately 130 out of 700 secondary schools offer a bilingual stream. However, research about CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) is limited. With her dissertation Evelyn van Kampen (PhD student at ICLON) wants to contribute to the understanding of the nature and range…

ACPA alumnus Budhaditya Chattopadhyay explores sound practices across South Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America in his new publication 'Sound Practices in the Global South: Co-listening to Resounding Plurilogues'.

Research by Dutch television programme ‘Nieuwsuur’ shows that local councils in the Netherlands often lack civil servants and experts to support the implementation of the energy transition. As a result, they have become more dependent on commercial consultancy firms.

On 19 May 2022, a debate was held in the Tweede Kamer (Dutch House of Representatives), during which Prime Minister Rutte was questioned about the news that he removed text messages from his phone on a daily basis. The Prime Minister announced during the debate that the Dutch advisory body on transparency…

The study ‘From Law to Practice: Towards a Roadmap to Strengthen Children’s Rights in the Era of Biomedicine’ written by experts from Leiden Law School and submitted to the Council of Europe’s Committee on Bioethics is now available online.

On 25 February, the KOG opened its doors once more to welcome a large crowd of people looking to find their perfect study programme during the Bachelor’s Open Day. The aspiring students were welcomed in the various lecture halls where they were able to experience the ins & outs of the available programmes…

Alumni event

Lecture

Dialogue

While health data is essential for scientific research, that data also needs to be protected. In her doctoral thesis, Irith Kist found a balance between protecting the individual and exchanging health data.

On Friday, April 5, the Ecuadorian police stormed the Mexican Embassy in Quito to arrest former Ecuadorian vice president Jorge Glas Espinel.

On 26 January 2023, a conference was held at Leiden Law School on children’s rights and migration. The conference, organised by Stichting Migratierecht Nederland (SMN) and the Europa Institute of Leiden University, was attended by academics, lawyers, judges, policymakers, and other legal professionals…

PhD defence

Andreas Häuselmann and Eduard Fosch-Villaronga from eLaw - Center for Law and Digital Technologies wrote an article on the legal and regulatory aspects of emotion data and presented it to the Affective Computing + Intelligent Interaction (ACII ‘23) Conference held at MIT. Andreas Häuselmann also hosted…

Conference

World Heritage status comes at a cost to the local population’s human rights. PhD Candidate Sophie Starrenburg explains the drawbacks of poetic terms such as ‘the cultural heritage of mankind’.

Conference, Book launch

I was disgusted by the recent Ongehoord Nederland broadcast on 15 September. The racist and hateful comments made by alumna Raisa Blommesteijn were, as far as I am concerned, way over the line and in my opinion also violate Article 1 of the Constitution of the Netherlands.

How can initiatives aimed at environmental conservation and climate change mitigation in the eastern Himalayas proceed from the cultural expectations of its indigenous ethno-linguistic minorities? Enabled by an NWO Open L grant, the research project 'Futuring Heritage: Conservation, Community and Contestation…

Wietse Stam is a PhD candidate at the Leiden University Institute for History. His PhD thesis is about UNTAC; a United Nations peacekeeping operation in Cambodia during the early 1990s.

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.

The Hague Journal of Diplomacy is calling for research papers. The deadline for submission is the first of June 2018. This will be used for a book and special issue of the The Hague Journal of Diplomacy

Starting this academic year (2016-2017) Maartje van der Woude, Professor of Sociology of Law at the Van Vollenhoven Institute will organize the Leiden Socio-Legal Series (LSLS).

The thesis “Exit Peter Paul? Divergente toezichthoudersaansprakelijkheid in de Europese Unie voor falend financieel toezicht, bezien vanuit het Europeesrechtelijke beginsel van effectieve rechtsbescherming” (Exit Peter Paul? Divergent supervisory liability in the European Union for failing financial…

On 6 April the Netherlands will vote on far-reaching cooperation with Ukraine. Referenda are exceptional in Dutch political history, according to Professor of Electoral Research Joop van Holsteijn.

The thesis “De publieke prijs. Een onderzoek naar de verdeling van publiek geld via prijsvragen” (The public prize. A study of the allocation of public funds by way of competitions) was awarded the faculty Jongbloed prize 2016-2017 on 12 January.

The world’s attention will shift to China as the Communist Party is set to hold its five-yearly congress beginning on 16 October. We talk to Senior University Lecturer Florian Schneider about how its leader Xi Jinping is expected to cement his place as the country’s most powerful leader since Mao Ze…

Klare taal en betere regels rond geheimhouding. Dit zijn enkele aanbevelingen van Leidse onderzoekers om de toegang tot informatie te verbeteren voor burgers die procederen tegen de overheid. Bestuur en rechter moeten zo vroeg en zoveel mogelijk informatie delen.

‘It became very clear that Brazilian legislative policy was frail, obsolete and unreliable,’ says Felipe de Paula. He will defend his dissertation on the limits and possibilities of legislative policy in Brazil on Tuesday 27 March 2018.

This year’s EUSA biannual research conference, which took place in Miami in May 2017, saw a large delegation of the Europa Institute Leiden leaving its mark. In several panels, Prof. Luuk van Middelaar, Dr. Moritz Jesse (Associate Professor at the Europa Institute), Dr. Armin Cuyvers (Assistant Professor…

Wim Voermans, Professor of Constitutional and Administrative law, travelled to São Paolo, Brasilia and Rio de Janeiro from 14 to 18 March with a delegation from Leiden University with the aim of strengthening ties with Brazil. During the visit agreements were made on future academic collaboration and…

Riese presented on 3 December 2018 the reason of state as the preservation of the state through exceptional measures.

Today is the general election in the Netherlands – although the polling stations have actually been open for two days already because of the coronavirus restrictions. Leiden researchers and students are involved in all manner of ways, and are analysing the campaigns and possible results.

The more people are vaccinated, the more society can slowly reopen. Technological developments, like the Covid passport and other apps, can play a role in this. Artificial Intelligence could help greatly in developing the vaccine passport and the Covid-19 exposure notification app, Anne Meuwese and…

The monthly ILS Lunch Seminars present the perfect opportunity to unite the different Institutes situated within Leiden Law School. On Thursday 14 March 2019, the next edition of the ILS Lunch Seminars will take place. This time, Nienke van Heek and Esther van Ginneken will present their research.

Bureaucrats appointed based on merit are not necessarily more professional or autonomous than those who have been, for instance, ‘politically installed’. Furthermore, patronage does not only have negative effects. These are two conclusions reached by Abdul-Nasir Abubakar, PhD candidate at Leiden University’s…