On Tuesday 19 March, Chris Suijker (Director of Real Estate) handed over the key of the Herta Mohr Building to Saskia Goedhard (Executive Director of the Faculty of Humanities), officially transferring the management of this building to the Faculty of Humanities.

The Max van der Stoel Human Rights Award is presented every two years on 10 December (Human Rights Day) in recognition of outstanding academic works in the field of international human rights.

Gerrie Lodder has published an article in the Dutch legal periodical Nederlands Juristenblad on the exploitation of labour migrants from the perspective of human rights.

Seminar 12th of April

What is the current situation of human rights in relation to detention under criminal law and immigration law, now that more and more parties are becoming involved in the administration of detention and crimmigration is on the rise? PhD defence on 21 January 2020.

On 11 April 2018, students of the Advanced Master’s in European and International Human Rights Law attended a lecture on the human rights situation in Mexico. The lecture was delivered by Dr. Víctor Avendaño Porras, who lectures and researches at Mexico’s CRESUR (Research Centre on Teaching Formation…

The start of the renovation of Cluster Zuid was a long time coming, but the moment has finally arrived. On Wednesday 8 June, Dean Mark Rutgers, accompanied by the contractor Constructif, symbolically marked the start of the demolition and reconstruction works by demolishing part of the roof.

A better integration of Digital Humanities into study programmes, so that students develop their digital skills as well as possible. That is what Hossam Ahmed wants to achieve in the coming years. He received a senior Comenius Fellowship to develop a digital programme for students.

Spatial humanities are developing fast at the moment. This international expert meeting intends to bring together specialists from different disciplines in order to discuss possibilities, challenges, and next steps for spatial humanities that are concerned with late-medieval and early modern urban history…

The deadline for abstract submissions for the Conference on Frisian Humantities has been extended: you can submit your research abstract until 15 March 2022.

Comprehensive, scholarly compilation of legal studies of substantive and procedural children’s rights, breaking new ground by analysing a wide range of international children's rights issues.

Neanderthals and modern humans in Belgium, a bone story

The deadline for the earlier announced Moving Humanities conference has been extended to August 12. See the original news message for the call for papers.

Mariana Gkliati participates as a PhD representative and member of the Steering Committee to the Netherlands Network for Human Rights Research (NNHRR), the development of the long-existing Netherlands School of Human Rights Research.

A theoretical project on the insights gained by human (including infant), nonhuman animal and computational studies on artificial grammar learning; identifying the critical questions for future research by developing novel experimental and computational approaches to address these issues.

In a new article in the journal Scientific Reports, Leiden archaeologist Wei Chu and colleagues report on recent excavations in Western Romania at the site of Româneşti, one of the most important sites in southeastern Europe associated with the earliest Homo sapiens. The site gives an important glimpse…

In store is now the Research Handbook on Labour, Business and Human Rights Law edited by prof. Janice Bellace of the University of Pennsylvania and ass. prof. Beryl ter Haar of Leiden University. The book is publisehd in Edward Elgars series on Human Rights.

The Early Upper Palaeolithic (EUP) record throughout Europe is characterized by major changes in human behaviour.

On 3 and 4 March, the 2nd Doctoral Seminar on International Criminal Law, International Human Rights Law and International Humanitarian Law was held at the Siracusa International Institute for Criminal Justice and Human Rights in Sicily. Ida Asscher and Anna Smulders, both PhD Candidates at the Grotius…

Three programmes at the Faculty of Humanities have been awarded medals by EW and ResearchNed. The bachelor’s in German Language and Culture took gold, and the bachelor's in Ancient Near Eastern Studies and the master's in Middle Eastern Studies each earned a bronze medal.

Three scholars of the Faculty of Humanities, Ahmad Al-Jallad, Thomas Fossen, and Tsolin Nalbantian, have received a Veni grant to implement their research plans over the coming years.

Over the years, many spectacular archaeological finds have been washed ashore on the Dutch coast. Among these a large assemblage of barbed points made of bone and antler from the Mesolithic (11,000-8000 BC). The species used by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers to manufacture their barbed points remained…

In this policy paper, Joachim Koops and Christian Patz are discussing Germany’s comprehensive assessment of Protection of Civilians readiness at the national level.

Four bachelor courses are rewarded as Top courses.

Alumnus Petri Freundlich received the first prize for his LL.M. thesis in the category Master’s theses and academic articles of the Max van der Stoel Human Rights awards 2017

PhD candidate Alex Brandsen, working in the Digital Archaeology research group has recently received a grant from the Leiden University Centre for Digital Humanities. This grant will be used to further develop and improve AGNES, the search engine for excavation reports that Brandsen is building.

Alumna Nadeshda Jayakody (25) from Australia graduated cum laude in Human Rights Law. What did she learn in Leiden that has been most useful? ‘I had to pretend that I already worked for an NGO.’

This dissertation examines how we can reconstruct physical activity by looking at variations in the shape of muscle attachment sites ( ‘entheses’) on the human skeleton. It evaluates two post-medieval contexts; rural Middenbeemster and urban Aalst.

Over the past few months, Urban Studies students have been helping to think about the realisation of the Humanities Campus. To test their knowledge in practice, the future urban specialists gave advice on several different aspects, including thermal energy storage and the new central campus building…

Various guests with a background in human rights, law, politics and international relations will be taking part in the ‘Human Rights and the World Cup Qatar’ debate on Friday 30 September. Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB) Secretary-General and Leiden alumnus Gijs de Jong will be there to provide…

Members of our research team give different types of presentations and lectures.

What is the impact of humans on nature? In Science an article appeared in which researchers try to give an answer to that question. Biogeographer and postdoc at LUCL Sietze Norder is one of its authors.

Prof. dr. mr. Maartje van der Woude (Van Vollenhoven Institute) has received funding from the National Police to carry out a phenomenon research on the extent to which, and how, human trafficking and human smuggling are intertwined phenomena in intra-Schengen border areas.

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.

Our research regularly receives attention in the (Dutch) popular media. Here is an overview.

The Altai region has yielded a cluster of Middle and Upper Paleolithic stratified sites that have been recently excavated using a multidisciplinary approach.

In a recent article published on PLOS, Drs. Briana Pobiner and Ryan McRae of the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History discuss the top 13 discoveries in human evolution in 2023.

On Thursday 2 June 2022, Olivia Serrano, a guest researcher in the GTGC programme, gave a presentation to the GTGC Global Justice and Human Rights stream. Olivia's presentation was about the Role of Independent Expert Committees in the Interpretation of Human Rights Treaties: the Right to Health as…

During the Faculty of Archaeology’s 2018 Field School excavation, in Leiden, two Early Medieval burials were encountered, as well as some house plans. One of the burials was found by Beatriz, an international student from Mexico. “When I found the pelvis bone it was clear that I had found a human sk…

Eduard Fosch-Villaronga, Hadassah Drukarch and Bart Custers from eLaw - Center for Law and Digital Technologies, explore together with Pranav Khanna, eLaw alumnus, the influence of automation on human–robot interaction and responsibility in surgery innovation.

Scientist looked for the genetic footprint of fire use in our genes, but found that our prehistoric cousins - the Neanderthals - and even the great apes seem better at dealing with the toxins in smoke than modern humans.

On Wednesday 4 December the vice-rector of the Sholokhov Moscow State University for the Humanities and the director of its Russian Institute of Advanced Studies visited Leiden University. The delegation signed a Memorandum of Understanding with dean Wim van den Doel to further collaboration in the…

The field of artificial intelligence has developed rapidly in recent years. We spoke with Stephan Raaijmakers, professor by special appointment in Communicative AI, about the impact of artificial intelligence and why everyone should pay more attention to developments in this field.

The symposium “Human-Wildlife conflicst in Africa” was held on the 27th October in the Academie gebouw of Leiden University in honor of the retirement of Prof.dr.ir. Hans H. de Iongh

Tan, former PhD candidate Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, received the award for the best dissertation with his thesis on armed conflict, international humanitarian law and human rights law.

On 25 November 2021, Jelena Belic presented her paper during a seminar organized by the GTGC Global Justice and Human Rights group. Her paper was about the Right to Withdraw from International Treaties: A Normative Analysis.

On 28 October 2021, Matthew Hoye presented his paper during a seminar organized by the GTGC Global Justice and Human Rights group. His paper was about the Remittances and Global Justice: Paradoxes and Potentials.

Three new PhD candidates at the Faculty of Humanities will receive funding from the Programme Office Sustainable Humanities and NWO. The aim of the grant is to boost young talent within the humanities.

Are you a motivated student wanting to grow outside of your own bachelor’s programme? Then, look no further than the Humanities Lab honours programme: a challenging opportunity to broaden your horizon and grow.

The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has granted four grants to Leiden humanities scholars. They get to spend this money on research on a topic of their choice, without thematic preconditions.