Plead

On 18 December 2019, Marianne Lochs defended her thesis 'Contempt of court'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. C.P.M. Cleiren and Prof. J.H. Crijns.

The effect of the pilot Teen courts will be evaluated by means of a programme, process and effect study based on qualitative research methods.

The bi-annual Children’s Rights Moot Court (CRM), organised by the Department of Child Law in partnership with Baker McKenzie, was initiated by Leiden Law School in 2014 on the occasion of the 25th Anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

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.

Too big to jail?

On Tuesday 3 September 2024 Straton Papagianneas successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

A Jurist's Travelogue

News

The main objective of the Telders International Law Moot Court Competition is to challenge students to excel in international law, consequently testing their creativity and powers of persuasion in a friendly competition. Students and academic staff throughout Europe consider participation to be a great…

How politically sensitive cases affect public trust in judges

Jaroslaw Kantorowicz examines how strategic climate litigation influences public attitudes on climate policy, using a UK experiment to explore legal cues.

On 9 January 2019, Marieke Wierda defended her thesis 'The Local Impact of a Global Court: Assessing the Impact of the International Criminal Court in Situation Countries'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. dr. C. Stahn en Prof. dr. L.J. van den Herik.

On 27 June 2019, Vid Prislan defended his thesis 'Domestic Courts in Investor-State Arbitration: Partners, Suspects, Competitors'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. dr. N.J. Schrijver.

It was the seventeenth time the Moot Court Challenge Cup was awarded! This time for the best pleader in the autumn of the 2025-2026 academic year.

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.

Andrea Giolai defended his thesis on 3 May 2017.

What Determines Perceptions of Bias toward the International Criminal Court? Evidence from Kenya. In this article, published on the website SAGE Journals in the Journal of Conflict Resolution, the authors Geoff Dancy, Yvonne Marie Dutton, Tessa Alleblas, Eamon Aloyo examine the attitude towards international…

Central to Nuranisa’s PhD project is the cultural diplomacy practiced by the Javanese courts of central Java (Surakarta, Yogyakarta, Pakualaman and Mangkunegaran) in response to the increasing Dutch colonial power in the 19th and early 20th century.

On 19 juni 2018 Matthew Gillett defended his doctoral thesis ‘Prosecuting environmental harm before the international criminal court’. His supervisor is prof. dr. L.J. van den Herik.

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.

How did rulers in the Netherlands and in adjacent smaller German territories adapt their regimes to ongoing change in legitimacy and decision-making during the transition period 1780-1820?

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.

Grotius Dialogue

Recently, Ingrid Leijten’s book Core Socio-Economic Rights and the European Court of Human Rights was published with Cambridge University Press. The monograph was published in the series Cambridge Studies in European Law and Policy (edited by Laurence Gormley and Jo Shaw) and deals with the protection…

Over the course of eight weeks, twelve law students spent several days at the various sectors of the Court of The Hague where they learned all about the work of judges, judicial assistants and legal advisers. At the final session on 10 March, they shared their experiences.

This project examines the meaning of this historical place, and the way it has been used by the political institutions that have had their seat there.

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…

The central aim is to systematically study differences in gendered crime patterns in the records of different types of courts in various Dutch cities in the early modern period.

This comparative study investigates court politics in four kingdoms that succeeded the south Indian Vijayanagara empire during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries: Ikkeri, Tanjavur, Madurai, and Ramnad. Building on a unique combination of unexplored Indian texts and Dutch archival records, this research…

Anthropology of Law in Muslim Sudan analyses the hybridity of law systems and the plurality of legal practices in rural and urban contexts of contemporary Sudan, shedding light on the complex relation between Islam and society.

On 1 February 2018 Charlotte Vrendenbarg defended her PhD dissertation

This course explains the functions of each international court and tribunal in The Hague. On the basis of cases and interviews with judges and lawyers, this course explores the role of these courts and tribunals and their potential to contribute to global justice.

The annual Hugo Sinzheimer Moot Court competition took place in Bratislava, Slovakia, from 19 to 21 June 2025. Twelve student teams from various European countries took part in the labour law moot court competition.

The Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies is proud to host the following moot court competitions in 2019:

Since its inception, a central preoccupation of and for the International Criminal Court (ICC) has been the nature of its relationship to national jurisdictions. Complementarity—the idea that the Court is intended to supplement, not supplant, national jurisdictions—has been the dominant juridical logic…

This was the tenth occasion that the Moot Court Challenge Cup has been awarded! This time for the best oral argument at the Moot Court held in the spring of academic year 2021-2022.

On 14 and 15 September, the 'Lobbying the Courts' workshop took place in Paris. This was an interdisciplinary workshop in which researchers from different disciplines came together to brainstorm on whether, how, and when interest groups focus on the judicial process and the courts in their lobbying…

Team Leiden L’expert has won the 12th edition of the NVER Moot Court competition 2019. The moot court is organised each year by the Dutch Association for European Law (NVER) and was held this year at Leiden University.

From March 28 to 31 twelve student teams from different countries visited Leiden to participate in the second edition of the Children’s Rights Moot Court. They were invited to plead an interesting and challenging immigration law case.

In this project diverse aspects of the duchesses’ roles in the complex and dynamic relations between town and crown are studied on the basis of systematic research in the account books of four cities (Ghent, Bruges, Leuven and Mechelen) in the Burgundian Netherlands (ca. 1430-1503).

On Thursday 27 October 2016 Alke Metselaar will defend her PhD dissertation ‘Drie rechters en één norm. Handhaving van de Europese staatssteunregels voor de Nederlandse rechter en de grenzen van de nationale procedurele autonomie’ (Three courts and one standard. Enforcement of European state aid regulations…

On 3 December 2019, Hanna Bosdriesz defended her thesis 'Furthering the fight against impunity in Latin America: the contributions of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to domestic accountability processes'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. L.J. van den Herik and Prof. M.A.H. van…

Maria Pichou is selected to act as a judge for the 2019 International Criminal Court Moot Court Competition (ICCMCC). Dr. Maria Pichou is Assistant Professor at Leiden University College The Hague.