Our Master Public International Law (L.L.M.) you will gain understanding of the legislation that governs international relations in a complex global society

This book is the first to incorporate current academic literature and case law on European, transnational, and international media law into a comprehensive overview intended primarily for students.

On Wednesday 13 December, Melanie Fink defended her doctoral thesis ‘Frontex and Human Rights: Responsibility in “Multi-Actor Situations” under the ECHR and EU Public Liability Law’. The supervisors are Rick Lawson and Jorrit Rijpma from Leiden, as well as Manfred Nowak, and Stephan Wittich from the…

Videos shared on social media have become important evidence to hold perpetrators of human rights violations accountable. What does this increased use of digital open source evidence mean for the quality of international human rights accountability? Through an innovative experimental design, this project…

About the book

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,…

Public International Law is a one-year Master’s specialisation at the internationally acclaimed Leiden Law School at Leiden University. The programme focuses on the legal framework that governs international relations in an increasingly complex global society.

This edited publication aims at reflecting on the future of discussions on the applicability of international law to States’ use of ICTs in the context of highly politicised discussions at the multilateral level and offering practical suggestions for the European Union to pursue its objectives in this…

Large numbers of children all over the world face significant health risks, such as infectious and chronic diseases, malnutrition, injuries and the consequences of natural disasters, protracted armed conflicts and poverty.

The Private International Law Department provides academic education and performs research in the field of private international law.

On 21 Januari 2020, Patrick van Berlo defended his thesis 'Human Rights Elephants in an Era of Globalisation: Commodification, Crimmigration, and Human Rights in Confinement'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. J.P. van der Leun and Prof. M.A.H. van der Woude.

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.’

Loopholes in international tax legislation contribute to the misuse of tax rules by multinationals. Leiden University legal experts investigate how the complex national and international tax rules can be made more consistent in order to create a better tax system.

The international legal order is in a process of transformation. But how transforms globalization the international legal order? This research programme provides a clearer framework to analyze this..

States, we are told, have monopolized the legal right to wage war since the seventeenth century and this arrangement has provided some basic stability in international relations. But is this really true? This project challenges this classic account and opens the way for rethinking the contemporary laws…

On 18 June 2019, Peter Kempees defended his thesis 'Hard power and the European Convention on Human Rights'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. R.A. Lawson and Prof. H. Duffy.

On 7 May 2020, Jolanda van der Vliet defended her thesis 'The International Legal Protection of Environmental Refugees. A human rights-based, security and State responsibility approach'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. N.J. Schrijver and Prof. J.J.C. Voorhoeve.

Tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians have died as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and the continuing armed conflict. Many forms of critical infrastructure have been destroyed. Much of this devastation has been caused by weapons that utilise forms of artificial intelligence…

How can international investment law and arbitration take account of the public interest in, and more broadly, the public dimension of, the relations between foreign investors and host States ?

Just published: Nederlands internationaal privaatrecht Special issue: Private international law and finance

The International Air Law Moot Court Competition is a unique opportunity for students seeking to gain experience in the development of arguments in the field of international law and international air law, while also establishing contacts around the world.

This programme video is presented in Dutch

Are you thinking about studying Public International Law? Learn more and watch the videos.

This book offers a comprehensive analysis of the international law applicable to cyber operations, including a systematic examination of attribution, lawfulness and remedies. It demonstrates the importance of countermeasures as a form of remedies and also shows the limits of international law, highlighting…

In this course, you will gain a deep insight into the rules that govern armed conflict, and aim to mitigate human suffering on the battlefield. You will explore the why and how of International Humanitarian Law, followed by the different types of conflict.

Are UN sanctions regimes in need of further formalization in terms of substantive design, procedural architecture and with a view to regulating and governing the interplay with other regimes?

Human Rights at Risk brings together social scientists, legal scholars, and humanities scholars to analyze the policy challenges of human rights protection in the twenty-first century.

On Tuesday 23 May 2017, Jasmina Mackic defended her doctoral thesis ‘Proving discriminatory violence at the European Court of Human Rights’. The supervisor of the research is Vice Dean and Professor of Public International Law Larissa van den Herik. A brief summary of her thesis is provided below.