In this article Vanessa Newby discusses how the ANZUS states of United States, Australia, and New Zealand that sit on the fringes of the Asia-Pacific, are increasingly using their armed forces to deliver Humanitarian Aid and Disaster Response (HADR) as a way of engaging with the region.

How do government officials and humanitarian organisations in Malawi anticipate and speculate on future disasters?

How do Humanitarian Response Organizations (HROs) and Virtual & Technical Communities (V&TCs) collaboratively govern disaster sensemaking processes, and what challenges shape the effectiveness of these collaborations between 2010 and 2016?

How do humanitarian organisations adapt cyber incidents to their specific priorities and needs, and how can they adapt strategies of other organisations?

The 2011 disasters precipitated widespread concern among heritage scholars about the fate of Tohoku’s cultural properties, tangible and intangible. Damage to not only buildings and landscapes but also ‘formless’ heritage, some worried, could weaken social infrastructure and thus slow or undermine re…

What does it mean to protect against disaster in the context of climate change and other cascading environmental crises?

In this book, Lydie Cabane examines the history of disaster management in South Africa.

Training and Exercising in Crisis management and Emergency Control

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the pressing question is how this global health emergency impacted the research agendas of the field of crisis and disaster science. This article reviewed contributions in ten important crisis and disaster journals in the two and a half years following the COVID-19…

This study examines recovery planning committees across Japan's Tohoku region.

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.

Andrew Littlejohn published the article 'Ruins for the future: Critical allegory and disaster governance in post-tsunami Japan' in American Ethnologist about the ruins left by Japan's 2011 tsunami.

How do descendants of survivors of violent conflict anticipate and respond to potential, future disaster – both potential new conflict and natural hazards?

The Summer School on International Humanitarian Law is designed by the Grotius Centre Kalshoven-Gieskes Forum on International Humanitarian Law. Registration is now open!

The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami caused immense destruction and over 170,000 deaths in the Indonesian province of Aceh. The disaster spurred large-scale social and political changes in Aceh, including the intensified implementation of shari‘a law and an end to the long separatist conflict. After the Tsunami…

Intelligence of the crowd, or in other words, intelligence of a large, random collective, exists mostly in social media platforms such as twitter. The collective does not comprise (at least not necessarily) experts on crises, just regular people mostly. Nevertheless, there is valuable intelligence to…

The central question is whether the current regime of international humanitarian law governing the conduct of hostilities in armed conflict is still adequate to deal with modern conflict scenarios, or whether it needs revision or amendment.

State fragility and conflict continue to be among the most enduring development challenges of the 21st century. The consequences of fragility and conflict on individuals, States and the international community are profound. At the individual level, an estimated 2 billion people or a quarter of the world's…

This article by Honorata Mazepus and Florian van Leeuwen in the journal Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration and Institutions looks at how evaluations of authorities were influenced by four aspects of a governmental response to a hypothetical disaster.

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute published Annemarie Samuels' article on the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean. It's a detailed ethnographic account of the experiences of three Indonesian survivors.

Attitudes towards cultural heritage have long been characterised by an ‘endangerment sensibility’ concerned with preventing losses. Recently, however, critical heritage scholars have argued that loss can be generative, facilitating the formation of new values and attachments. Their arguments have focused…

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…

This anthology contributes to a historically grounded understanding of the complex relationship between Christian missions and the roots of humanitarianism and its contemporary uses in a Middle Eastern context.

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

It is a tragic fact that mass atrocities have been, and are being, committed across the world. The international community, while condemning these acts, often stands idly by. This conundrum raises a host of empirical, legal, and normative questions regarding the role of public opinion in responding…

In this article Jeroen Wolbers and Sanneke Kuipers take a closer look at disaster preparedness to reinvigorate the academic debate.

The world is full of wars, and no war is without its dead. What happens to the bodies of fatal casualties of armed conflict? The winner of the faculty Jongbloed Thesis Prize 2015 is Welmoet Wels (Public International Law). Her thesis Dead body management in armed conflict: paradoxes in trying to do…

This edited volume draws from papers presented at the conference Closing the Gap | Responsibility in Cyberspace: Narratives and Practice, organized in June 2022 at the Egmont Palace in Brussels, Belgium, by Leiden University, as part of the EU Cyber Direct project.

In response to the challenges imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, governments worldwide adopted a variety of strategies that include not just preventive or mitigation strategies adopted to 'flatten the curve', but also interventions aiming to mitigate economic and social impacts of the pandemic.

The author researched the motivations of bureaucrats to integrate refugees into welfare services even when they do not have any legal obligation to do so.

How can ‘Big Data’ be used in development and humanitarian aid, and what are the risks? Leiden University and the United Nation’s Global Pulse are organising an international expert meeting in The Hague on 23 October.

Here we provide information on the ways through which the Institute of Psychology aims to foster responsible scholarship practices: conducting research with integrity, and meeting the needs for better quality and efficiency in psychological science.

This editorial to RHCPP discusses how COVID-19 can be seen as a 'creeping crisis' according to the authors of its lead article (Boin et al, 2020) and how resilience may depend on the real heroes behind the scenes of response to disaster and adversity.

In Humanity’s End As A New Beginning, Emeritus Professor Mineke Schipper reflects on myths about ‘the end’.

The Frits Kalshoven International Humanitarian Law Competition, organised by the Netherlands Red Cross and Belgian Red Cross-Flanders, lets students explore the legal framework governing armed conflict. Eight teams from Belgium and the Netherlands competed in the 19th edition (23–27 February 2026) in…

The Hague Diplomacy Podcast aims at bringing the themes of the journal's research off the page, and onto the discussion table. Each episode will feature a guest who will share their insights and personal experience within their practice of or research on diplomacy. Available via SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts…

Alicia Schrikker, Director of Research at the Leiden University Institute for History shed light on the importance of preserving archives of natural disasters. Her lecture titled History, Memory, and Archives of Disaster looked at the 1883 Krakatoa eruption through archival records of the colonial government…

‘There is no such thing as a timeless Japanese soul,’ says newly appointed Professor in Modern Japan Studies Katarzyna Cwiertka. The first month of her professorship turned out to be a crucial test: Japan was hit by a destructive earthquake and tsunami, and Cwiertka had to keep her head in the midst…

On the 14th December 2016, Steven L. Schwarcz, Stanley A. Star Professor of Law and Business at Duke University School of Law gave the thirteenth Hazelhoff Guest Lecture. Professor Schwarcz questioned the often-heard assumption that systemically important financial institutions engage in excessive…

This is a visual presentation for the panel Unbounded Obligations at Distribute2020 Conference by Federico de Musso.

Animal experiments are not undertaken lightly; we are working with sentient beings. As scientists, we have great responsibility to handle laboratory animals with care. Read here how we consider and justify this.

Drug-induced liver injury (DILI) is one of the main reasons for drug attrition during pre-clinical and clinical phases of drug development as well as for drug withdrawal post-marketing.

Within Leiden University, we sometimes conduct research with laboratory animals. We only do this when when we cannot answer the research question in any other way.

Emerging from the first wave relatively unscarred to an increase in infections. This research analyses the response from the Bulgarian government to Covid-19.

This study aims to explore the use of a behavioral-design-based approach in simulating patient flow through EMTs. It provides a dynamic behavioral simulation model to assess the interactions between patients, staff members, and the related dynamic movements/interactions with the health care facility,…

This page brings together the Assistant Professors appointed through the Social Sciences Sector Plan at Leiden University. Each researcher contributes to strengthening the social sciences through the development of new research lines, innovative teaching, and collaboration across disciplines and fac…