This article discusses the degree of independence that is required for national human rights institutions to function successfully.

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

The Dutch scientists Quirine Eijkman and Jan-Peter Loof have been appointed vice-presidents in the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights.

Rick Lawson, Professor of European Law and former Dean of Leiden Law School, was appointed as the new president of the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights on 30 June.

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…

Melanie Fink, Postdoctoral Researcher at the Europa Institute of Leiden University, has published her book Frontex and Human Rights, Responsibility in 'Multi-Actor Situations' under the ECHR and EU Public Liability Law. This work is based on her doctoral dissertation, which she defended in December…

On 1 October 2019 the Hazelhoff Centre for Financial law hosted its 19th guest lecture starring Paul Sharma, managing director at Alvarez & Marsal and co-head of the European Financial Industry Regulatory Advisory Services practices.

The central question in this book is whether there is a human right to family unification.

On Thursday 15 December, Elisavet Alexiadou has defended her doctoral thesis ‘The Right to Health. A Human Rights Perspective with a Case Study on Greece.’ at the Academy Building of Leiden University. Supervisor was Prof.dr. A.C. Hendriks.

The Children’s Rights Monitor provides a thematic overview of the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in the Netherlands.

Peter Rodrigues, Professor of Immigration Law, has been appointed as a deputy member of the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights for a period of eighteen months.

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.

The Children’s Rights Education Fund is an initiative that strengthens global leadership in children’s rights by offering financial support to students of the Advanced LL.M. in International Children’s Rights at Leiden Law School.

This thesis aims at thinking through the ethical position of animals in a way that differs radically from the manner in which this ethical position is thought within contemporary animal rights discourse.

In this article, Maria-Elena Kisyova, Yannick Veilleux-Lepage and Vanessa Newby shed some light on how a small but highly visible group of influencers are actively working to promote a dangerous far-right ideology.

The Children’s Rights Monitor provides a thematic overview of the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in the Netherlands.

On 16-17 June 2022, Valentina Carraro presented a paper on ‘Overlapping Institutions in the United Nations human rights system’ at the Politicologenetmaal conference, Radboud University, Nijmegen.

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…

This book examines the impact of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) on national and international jurisprudence, since its adoption in 1989.

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.

The Leiden Children's Rights Observatory is an open access online database of case commentaries, written by international experts on children’s rights, referring to the decisions of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child under the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on…

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…

The Leiden Children’s Rights Clinic is a pilot initiative that advances the implementation of children's rights and offers research-based, legal and practical solutions to address the gap in knowledge and shortage of resources in the field of children’s rights.

Frontiers of Children's Rights Summer School

It is difficult to deny the value and importance of human rights, and yet their application in the context of climate change is increasingly contested. While some argue that it is difficult to establish the violation of human rights by climate change processes, others contend that human rights are anthropocentric,…

Master

Master

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.

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.

The Children’s Rights Monitor provides a thematic overview of the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in the Netherlands.

On 26 juni 2018, Claire Achmad defended her doctoral thesis 'Children’s Rights in International Commercial Surrogacy: Exploring the Challenges from a Child Rights, Public International Law Perspective'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. Dr. Mariëlle Bruning.

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.

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.

Leiden University’s Master of Laws in International Children’s Rights (LL.M.) looks at human rights laws for children from a comparative perspective.

This research paper seeks to examine the nature of the nexus between right-wing extremism and the military by surveying five potential consequences (i.e., problem areas) arising from the presence of right-wing extremists within the armed forces of twelve Western countries.

Discover the Summer School Frontiers of Children’s Rights by Leiden Law Academy, with this year's theme of accountability and access to justice. Read more here!

As children learn, develop and acquire more skills, their legal position also changes. Professor of Children’s Rights Ton Liefaard works closely together with Leiden social sciences researchers to shed light on these growing capacities and their implications for our legal system. ‘Our ideas about children’s…

The ECtHR needs to provide effective rights protection, but it also needs to set clear standards while showing deference to decisions made at the national level. Especially when socio-economic issues are concerned, meeting these different demands is a challenging task.

Industrialised countries extract natural resources in the territories of indigenous peoples, and appropriate the knowledge and culture of these peoples. Leiden anthropologists work to protect the rights of indigenous peoples. Their knowledge and advice enable governments to source sustainable produc…