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.

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.

Master of Laws: Advanced Studies in International Children’s Rights Outstanding Student Research Theses

On 10 December Walter Burkard won the Jaap Doek Children’s Rights Thesis Award 2020 for his thesis on climate change and children’s rights.

Ton Liefaard, Stephanie Rap and Peter Rodrigues have edited the book 'Monitoring Children’s Rights in the Netherlands. 30 Years of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child' (Leiden University Press).

On October 20th, at 13:00-15:00 in Grotiuszaal (A051 KOG) the advanced International Children’s Rights program and the Leiden Institute of Immigration Law will co-organize a lecture by Ms. Margaret Tuite, the European Commission Coordinator for the Rights of the Child.

On Thursday 11 January 2018, Xiang Li will defend her doctoral thesis: “Collective Labour Rights and Collective Labour Relations of China”. The defence will take place at 11:15 hrs at the Academy Building of Leiden University, Rapenburg 73. The supervisors are Professor Guus Heerma van Voss and Professor…

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.

The team from Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá, Colombia) came out on top at the international online Moot Court organised by Leiden University and law firm Baker McKenzie.

On the 15th of June, 2017, Professor Ton Liefaard gave a key note address at the occasion of the conference International Conference for Children's Rights. A Rights-based Approach to Child Welfare in Taipei, Taiwan.

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…

Professor Ann Skelton, Rotating Honorary Chair of Enforcement of Children's Rights 2020/2021 at the Department of Child Law, has been re-elected as member of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child.

What is the impact of Indonesia’s democratization process on everyday state-citizen relations?

Crime victims cannot always fully exercise their rights, said Maarten Kunst, Professor of Criminology, in his inaugural lecture on 26 October. His mission is to find out why exactly this is and to see whether change can be brought about.

The Children’s Rights Observatory is pleased to launch the Spanish version of the website. This new feature of the website is a result of the partnership between Leiden Law School and the Center for Constitutional Studies of the Mexican Supreme Court (CEC-SCJN).

This volume contains the first edition of 66 papyri and ostraca in the collection of the Leiden Papyrological Institute.

Prof. Ton Liefaard connected to around 150 legal professionals in India and beyond to reflect upon the COVID-response of governments from a children’s rights perspective.

(1) What are the institutional factors that influence AI adoption and implementation? and (2) How does AI reshape the exercise of administrative discretion within public organisations, and how do adoption and implementation choices moderate these effects?

Political Scientist Valentina Carraro (Leiden University) devises a framework to assess the degree to which United Nations human rights bodies provide duplicating or contradicting recommendations to states. Focusing on the case of torture, she creates an original database of recommendations delivered…

Children and young people feel the government is not listening to them during the coronavirus pandemic and this is a cause for concern in light of international children’s rights. This is the conclusion of a recent report by a research team from Leiden University on how children and youngsters have…

Children are suffering disproportionally from the coronavirus measures. They feel depressed more often compared to other age groups. But what about the legal perspective? Are children’s rights being violated?

On 24 September 2020, Bernardo Ribeiro de Almeida defended his thesis 'Building land tenure systems: the political, legal, and institutional struggles of Timor-Leste'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. A.W. Bedner. Co-supervisor was Dr. C.I.M. Jacobs.

This publication examines the issues regarding the cross-border resolution of financial institutions, focusing on the power allocation between the home and host resolution authorities, i.e. the jurisdiction rule.

In November 2020 former dean Rick Lawson, professor of European Human Rights Law, was elected member of the Management Board of the EU Fundamental Rights Agency in Vienna. He was nominated by the Dutch Government following an open selection procedure.

What does the UN seek to achieve though global observance days, weeks and years and how have these initiatives impacted the role of the organization in forwarding the agenda of human rights?

On 22 April 2016, the Social Justice Expertise Center (SJEC) hosted the first global conference for international labour law judges and other adjudicators themed ‘Ensuring Coherence in Fundamental Labour Rights Case Law: Challenges and Opportunities’ at the Academy Building of the University of Leid…

Fundamental rights protect citizens from the government, but they are not absolute. A crisis situation not only gives the government the opportunity to restrict freedoms, it also shows citizens how far it is willing to go in doing so. ‘In the [Dutch] cabinets led by Rutte, there seems to be less and…

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…

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…

The Dutch government will be unable to make wearing face masks mandatory in public spaces in the short term, according to three constitutional and administrative law experts in NRC newspaper, including Wim Voermans.

Recently, Hart Publishing published the book Rewriting Children’s Rights Judgments, From Academic Vision to New Practice edited by H. Stalford, K. Hollingsworth and S. Gilmore.

On 20 November 2015, on the occasion of Universal Children’s Day, the Council of Europe and the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights launched the Handbook on European law relating to the rights of the child.

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.

Legal proceedings conducted on behalf of apes and animals who are starved for the purpose of an ecological project. What position do animals actually have in the rule of law? And what changes need to be made? PhD candidate Janneke Vink defends her dissertation on 10 October.

Each year, the Jaap Doek Children’s Rights Thesis Award is presented to the student who has written the best master’s thesis in the Netherlands or Belgium in the field of children’s rights. The award was established by Defence for Children and Leiden University's Department of Child Law.

On the 2nd of June, Valentina Carraro gave a lecture on the complementarity of human rights reviewing mechanisms in the United Nations and presented an original framework to assess the extent to which institutions within regime complexes repeat or contradict each other when delivering recommendations…

Christa Tobler writes an extensive article on voting rights for different groups for the annual congress of the

In Slaving Zones: Cultural Identities, Ideologies, and Institutions in the Evolution of Global Slavery, fourteen authors—including both world-leading and emerging historians of slavery—engage with the ‘Slaving Zones’ theory.

On February 20th, Gulnaz Sibgatullina succesfully defended her doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Gulnaz on this great result.