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.

In this paper, Sibgatullina and Abbas aim to illuminate the complex connections between the European right-wing movements and Islam and discusses how the adoption of Muslim identity may function as a politically strategic opportunity for European conservative forces.

In Women and Property Rights in Indonesian Islamic Contexts, eight scholars of Indonesian Islam examine women’s access to property in law courts and in village settings.

Jasmina Mačkić, Assistant Professor of Human Rights Law at the Europa Institute, has published her book, Proving Discriminatory Violence at the European Court of Human Rights. This work is based on her doctoral dissertation, which she defended in May 2017 and which was funded by the Netherlands Organisation…

Holtz defended her dissertation ‘Collective human rights as an (onto)logical solution to climate change: reconceptualizing, applying and proceduralizing an overlooked category of human rights’ on 16 October 2025. The doctoral research was supervised by Carsten Stahn and Daniëlla Dam-de Jong.

In this article, Tom Buitelaar proposes a systematic framework for analyzing the impact of individual characteristics of peacekeeping leaders on the behaviour of field-level personnel in UN peacekeeping operations.

Joe Finnerty has co-edited the 2026 Symposium in the Human Rights Law Review entitled Legitimate Aims and Ulterior Purposes in International Human Rights Law: Comparative Perspectives.

Taking Mozambique as a case study, the aim of this research is to develop a methodology for improving flood risk assessments by extending hydrological records using paleo hydrologic evidence of past floods, combined with a socio-legal assessment of the land rights of those impacted by climate change…

To what extent are the rights to street children violated en how can their rights be protected?

This socio-legal research focuses on the impacts of environmental displacement on land rights and land-related conflict in Mozambique in the aftermath of cyclone Idai, and on the role of the legal framework in addressing these problems.

Valentina Carraro explores the relationship between overlapping UN human rights institutions, specifically the treaty bodies and the Universal Periodic Review (UPR)

On 18 March 2020, Hoko Horii defended her thesis ‘Child Marriage as a Choice. Rethinking agency in international human rights’. The doctoral research was supervised by prof. A.W. Bedner and prof. G.A. van Klinken.

Mateo Cohen (research assistant at the Open University of Israel and PhD candidate at Leiden University’s Institute of Political Science) studied arguments articulated by diverse members of the Right-Wing elite in Israel and explains how these views lead to the rejection of a two-state solution and…

This report highlights the huge potential of public inquiries to ensure that lessons are learned from COVID-19 to help the UK prepare for a future pandemic.

On Thursday 11 January 2018, Xiang Li defended her doctoral thesis: “Collective Labour Rights and Collective Labour Relations of China”. The supervisors are Professor Guus Heerma van Voss and Professor Barend Barentsen.

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.

In December 2024, the book Redressing Fundamental Rights Violations by the EU: The Promise of the ‘Complete System of Remedies', edited by Melanie Fink, was published fully open access with Cambridge University Press. The EU prides itself on having created a legal system that puts the individual at…

This is the 2017 paperback release of William Michael Schmidli's The Fate of Freedom Elsewhere, which won the 2013 Foreign Affairs Magazine Best Book of the Year.

The 2006 United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities differs markedly from other forms of international human rights law: it not only protects the rights of individuals but also addresses interpersonal relations and social structures. How did the convention attain this broad…

A new Special Issue with Transnational Legal Theory edited by Jelena Belic, Matthew Canfield, Henning Lahmann, Rachel Griffin, and Barrie Sander, brings together a collective of perspectives to unpack the promise and perils of human rights as a vocabulary for governing digital platforms.

Almost three years after receiving her honorary doctorate, Dr Graça Machel returned to Leiden University. Over the course of two days she spoke with students, researchers, and other interested persons, about human rights – particularly those of women and children – in a world in which these are continually…

In Freedom on the Offensive, William Michael Schmidli illuminates how the Reagan administration's embrace of democracy promotion was a defining development in US foreign relations in the late twentieth century.

In this article, Barrie Sander, Assistant Professor of International Law, elaborates some of the risks that arise from relying on AI technologies to address climate change and explores the extent to which human rights law may be harnessed to address such risks through three registers of human rights…

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.

Which challenges exist for girls to effectuate their right to education and specifically getting access to education?

On 3 December 2019, Meda Couzens defended her thesis 'The application of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child by national courts'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. T. Liefaard and Prof. J.J. Sloth-Nielsen.

On Thursday 20 May 2021, Tania Li delivered the annual Van Vollenhoven Lecture.

This summer school focuses on the emergence of sexual orientation, gender identity (SOGI) and intersex issues in different areas of international law, such as human rights law, refugee law, international economic law, and international criminal law. Details on the application for this edition are available…

In secondary school, homophobic language is common, even in the Netherlands where there is high acceptance of homosexuality in the adult population. Adolescents especially in lower educational levels have prevailingly negative attitudes towards their lesbian and gay peers. Peer education with its participatory…

Does foreign aid promote human rights?

In this article, Meier & Nadler suggest that while non-citizen enfranchisement boosts participation across all citizens, citizens with immigration backgrounds are more reactive to the NCV rights in terms of higher turnout. In this way, the paper adds a critical nuance to individual-based explanations…

The drafting of a handbook that serves as the first guide to European law in the area of children's rights, taking into account the case law of the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), as well as the decisions of the European Committee of Social Rights…

This research explores how international organisations responded to the humanitarian and human rights challenges brought about by COVID-19.

This book presents the results of a research about the Islamic courts of Cianjur in West Java, and Bulukumba in South Sulawesi and the role they play in local divorce practices.

Archives were a common target during the Second World War, and hundreds suffered damages. Among these archival losses, the losses to medieval manuscript collections stand out.

The research project addresses the question how complaints in the voluntary youth care system are dealt with on the municipal level and what role (municipal) Children’s Ombudspersons play in this context, through qualitative research methods.

In the present-day United States, to what degree(s) are far-right men and women similar and/or dissimilar in their motivating factors for engaging in far-right social movement activism?

Develop a tool to assess land tenure, access to land and, and land tenure conflict in Timor-Leste

Barrie Sander identifies different categories of risks and concern of relying on artificial intelligence technologies to confront climate change.

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…

PhD defence