This project investigates how early print media covered distant but urgent geopolitical conflicts, using newspapers from the Low Countries, north and south.

On Friday 16 May Juul Eijk successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

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 November 17, 2017, Professor Simone van der Hof gave a duo lecture with her colleague Professor Eva Lievens from Ghent University during the 'Children and Digital Rights' conference at the Information Law and Policy Centre, which is part of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (University of L…

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…

In early medieval England, there was an interest in the history of the Roman Empire and kings adopted such imperial titles as 'imperator' or 'basileus'. How can we explain this interest and what functions did imperial ideas and the reception of the classical world serve in early medieval England?

On Friday afternoon 15 November 2024, the Leiden University Sustainability, Business and Human Rights Network and Discussion Group (LUSBHR) organised the Corporate Responsibility Conference: Topical issues on fundamental rights and sustainability. The afternoon was spent considering corporate social…

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.’

The Jaap Doek Children’s Rights Thesis Award is an annual award for the best thesis in the field of Children’s Rights granted by Defence for Children and the Department of Child Law of Leiden Law School.

Today’s socio-economic challenges aren’t new. In the centuries after the retreat of the Roman state people with different backgrounds and with different ways of life somehow managed to build and maintain a complex economic system in northern Gaul that would produce the ruling dynasties of Europe. By…

The Persian Empire (539-330 BCE) was the first world empire in history. At its height, it united a territory stretching from present-day India to Libya - and it would take 2,000 years before significantly larger empires emerged in early modern Eurasia. This territorial sweep is both a source of fascination…

The project explores the impact of the clash between defenders of a rules-based order and international law on global governance and the future of legal systems.

Is the legitimacy of law and governance of multilevel jurisdictions diminishing? What is the significance of (diminishing) legitimacy for the effectiveness of law? These kinds of questions about the legitimacy of the supranational formation of law, its application, and the policy and governance based…

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…

On 21 June, Ingrid Leijten gave a lecture at the Centre for Human Rights of the Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (CHREN) in Germany. The interdisciplinary centre is linked to a Master’s Programme in Human Rights with students from all over the world.

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.

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…

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 8-9 December 2016 the Department of Children’s Rights of Leiden Law School held an international PhD conference on Children’s Rights in Leiden, under the direction of Ton Liefaard, Julia Sloth-Nielsen and Marielle Bruning. As one of the institutional partners of this department in the research program…

Willem van der Muur's article on Indonesia's recent recognition of indigenous land rights was published by New Mandala.

This collection of essays explores processes of innovation in Greco-Roman technology and science.

What was the stringed instrument known in medieval and early Renaissance Italy as “cetra”?

Until the 1990s, the only known planets were those in our Solar System. Three decades later, several thousand exoplanets have been discovered orbiting stars other than the Sun, and substantial efforts have been made to explore these strange new worlds through spectroscopic analyses of their atmosphe…

Until recently, the role of external information processing in intelligence has rarely been investigated quantitatively or experimentally. A group of researchers from Erasmus University Rotterdam, Leiden University, GGZ Rivierduinen, and University of Edinburgh measured in a new way how and when people…

Sarah Giest and Annemarie Samuels, both Assistant Professors at Leiden University, researched the quality and coverage of the data being collected for policiymakers to be used, specifically pertaining to minority groups.

Does hegemony—legitimated rule by dominant power—have a role in ordering world politics of the twenty-first century? If so, what form does that hegemony take: does it lie with a leading state or with some other force? How does contemporary world hegemony operate: what tools does it use and what outcomes…

International trade has played a major role in defining the modern global economy. Trade, however, entangles the environmental pressures of economic sectors, giving the illusion of environmental improvements, while the opposite may be occurring.

What was the stringed instrument known in medieval and early Renaissance Italy as “cetra”?

The Faculty of Archaeology's own home-grown journal Inter-Section has released a new volume. Inter-Section offers students and PhD candidates the unique chance to publish in a peer-reviewed journal. The new volume focuses on the materials that shape our world.

Exchanges between different cultures and institutions of learning have taken place for centuries, but it was only in the twentieth century that such efforts evolved into formal programs that received focused attention from nation-states, empires and international organizations.

Carsten Stahn has just published Confronting Colonial Objects: Histories, Legalities and Access to Culture. The book is part of the OUP Cultural Heritage Law and Policy Series.

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.

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…

From 29 to 30 October 2024, the Kalshoven-Gieskes Forum (KGF) and the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies had the pleasure of hosting an inspiring authors’ workshop in The Hague for the forthcoming Research Handbook, Victims' Rights under Public International Law, edited by Dr Robert Heinsch…

On 24 January 2025, a Workshop on ‘Protecting human rights through collective redress’ took place at the Central European University in Vienna. It was organised by Dr Zsolt Körtvélyesi in the framework of a Maria Skłodowska-Curie project on ‘Minority Rights – Towards Effective European Enforcement’.

The annual excursion of the Adv. LLM programme in European and International Human Rights Law (EIHRL) took place from Sunday 16 to Saturday 21 April.

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.

The starting point of Hermans' research is how both children's physical play and dance improvisation by professionals can be considered somatic practices where sense-making manifests itself in and between bodies, and through movement.

On 9 November 2016 Jan-Peter Loof presented a lecture at the Annual Research Day of the Netherlands School of Human Rights Research (SHRR), which this year took place at the University of Amsterdam.

For refugee children, the right to information is of great importance to make their voice heard. Stephanie Rap is studying the child’s right to participate in the asylum procedure. She has also studied the working method of the Dutch Council for Refugees in this context.

Misha Plagis, assistant professor at the Grotius Centre of Public International Law wrote a paper together with Dr Nicole De Silva (Concordia University) entitled 'NGOs, international courts, and state backlash against human rights accountability: Evidence from NGO mobilization against Tanzania at the…

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.