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Katie Pentney wins Max van der Stoel Human Rights Award 2021 with master’s thesis

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.

Katie Pentney won the award for her master’s thesis Tinker, Tailor, Twitter, Lie: Government Disinformation and Freedom of Expression in a Post-Truth Era. According to the jury, her thesis is highly topical and relevant, providing a clear analysis of a pressing issue. Pentney won a prize of €1500 with her thesis.

The Max van der Stoel Human Rights Award is organised by Tilburg University and the Netherlands Network for Human Rights Research (NNHRR). The award is given to theses written at Dutch or Flemish universities. Pentney was a student on the Advanced LLM in European and International Human Rights Law at Leiden University. Her thesis supervisor was Professor of Public Law Tarlach McGonagle.

United Nations

The award is named after Dutch politician Max van der Stoel who, among other things, was Ambassador of the Netherlands to the United Nations and the first High Commissioner on National Minorities of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Van der Stoel was also Professor of International and European Law at Tilburg University and Leiden University.

Besides a master’s thesis, every two years a PhD dissertation is also awarded a prize. This was awarded to Yousra Benfquih, who obtained her PhD at the University of Antwerp with her dissertation Reasonable Accommodation in Education: An Integrated Human Rights Approach on the basis of the Right to Equality, Inclusive Education and Freedom of Religion.

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