In times of hardships or crisis, local people know how to deal with it using their resourcefulness. Although efforts are sometimes made by the government to help them, they are fully aware that community support is at least equally important.

The Power and Pains of Polysemy: Maritime Trade, Averages, and Institutional Development in the Low Countries (15th–16th Centuries) investigates the development of General Average and other so-called Averages in the Low Countries on the eve of the early modern period, showing how the various varieties…

Mark Klaassen and Peter Rodrigues have published a journal article on the role of the best interests of the child in EU family reunification law in the European Journal of Migration and Law. They conclude that even though the Court of Justice of the European Union has often referred to the best interests…

The center studies the many ways in which issues of law and justice are dealt with in art and literature with a focus on liminal issues and cases. These are issues and cases where law comes to the limits of what it is capable of dealing with and art and literature explore the implications of what is…

On 3-4 December 2024, HIAS Greece and the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung organised a roundtable that took place in Athens to discuss strategic litigation in the area of migration and refugee law.

This socio-legal study focuses on the implementation of climate change response laws and policies in developing countries with a weak rule-of-law environment, and their (unforeseen) effects on vulnerable peoples’ land rights.

What’s the right dosage of medication for children? Assistant professor Elke Krekels and her colleagues discovered that for some medicines, you can determine this quite simply. On 13 April Krekels received the TOP-Publication award during the annual spring meeting of the Dutch Society for Clinical Pharmacology…

Sweetie 2.0 is a research project commissioned by Terre des Hommes on online child sex tourism and criminal law.

In the Netherlands, various local VVD parties are calling for an asylum stop. Other political parties, Ja21, BBB, PVV and FvD, also see an asylum stop as the solution to the continuing asylum problems. Earlier, an opinion poll showed that a majority (69 per cent) of the Dutch population agrees. Is an…

What did colonial officials and missionaries think they were doing?

‘Can he do it?’ Since the remarkable victory of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2015 Nigerian presidential elections, this has arguably been the most frequently posed question in Nigerian politics.

U-Multirank is an alternative approach to international ranking of higher education institutions (HEIs) worldwide. This analytical tool is user-driven and multi-dimensional by design. The current version (2016/2017) includes 1 600 HEIs. The ranking system compares the relative performance of HEIs (mostly…

Combining cutting-edge quantitative approaches with more traditional book history approaches, this new book offers the first history of medieval manuscript destruction in England from the medieval period to the present.

In this journal article, Dr. Joris Larik and Dr. Richard Ponzio put forward a broad-based pandemic recovery agenda that goes hand in hand with institutional reforms at the global level.

Melanie Fink has been awarded the APART-GSK grant of the Austrian Academy of Sciences to carry out her research project ‘No right without a remedy: Making EU fundamental rights enforceable’ for a period of four years.

On Tuesday 19 January 2016, dr. Nelleke Koffeman LL.M, assistant professor at the Europa Instituut of Leiden Law School, appeared as a guest on the radio show ‘Juridische Zaken’ (‘Legal Affairs’) for the Dutch national radio channel BNR Nieuwsradio to discuss the proposal by the Alliance of Liberals…

The shift from response to recovery is now noticeable as the world moves past the paralyzing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. This book explores responses to the pandemic by international, regional, and local institutions, multilateral action, and crisis prevention efforts at different levels of governance,…

UNESCO has recognized a large collection of handwritten letters and the archive of Raden Ajeng Kartini (1879-1904) as documentary world heritage. Kartini opposed gender inequality in feudal Javanese society, including forced marriages, polygamy and lack of education for women.

For several years, the University of Tasmania has been ranked first among universities worldwide in terms of climate action. The interest in this topic is therefore very pronounced.

In 1986 a group of international human rights experts convened in Maastricht to discuss the character and scope of state parties’ obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural rights. This resulted in the Limburg Principles on the Implementation of the International Covenant…

From 2029, childcare in the Netherlands will be almost free for working parents. Egbert Jongen, Professor of Economics, spoke with Nieuwsuur about the missed opportunities for non-working parents: 'Participation in formal childcare is particularly beneficial for children from disadvantaged families.…

Mariana Gkliati participated on Monday 11 April in an expert meeting organized by the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) in Berlin, entitled: 'Round Table on Potential Litigation Against FRONTEX for Human Rights Violations'.

This research delves into the unique cultural approach of the Tenggerese people, an Indigenous community in East Java, Indonesia, regarding elderly care. It focuses on their traditional practices of bakti (‘filial piety’) and sayan (‘mutual aid’), deeply ingrained in the community's lifestyle and va…

On Tuesday December the 11th, the yearly research colloquium of the research programme ‘Effective Protection of Fundamental Rights in a Pluralist World’ took place in the Faculty Room Law of the Academy Building.

This research evaluates the Youth Act. It will provide an overview of how the transition takes place, whether the transformation process develops in the right direction and whether the legal safeguards are functioning properly.

On Tuesday 23 May 2023, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), in collaboration with The Hague Academy of International Law, held an event to commemorate the life of the Brazilian jurist Antônio Augusto Cançado Trindade, who served as a Member of the Court from 2009 until his death on 29 May 2022…

On Saturday 3 December, Peter Rodrigues and Mark Klaassen delivered two guest lectures at Sofia University. They were invited by ELSA Bulgaria to speak at the Human Rights Academy 2022 that was devoted to the protection of the human rights of unaccompanied minors. The event was made possible by the…

Europa Institute staff members Jorrit Rijpma, Melanie Fink and Kristof Gombeer participated last week in the Odysseus Network’s Summer School on EU Immigration and Asylum Law and Policy (Brussels, 2-13 July).

A growing number of AI tools are being developed for the legal sector, to help professionals search lengthy texts or check court rulings. Leiden SAILS researcher Masha Medvedeva, an expert on the technical development of these systems, warns: ‘Users should know what’s under the hood.’

This project is part of a broader research agenda aiming to better understand the relationships between the development of contemporary security concerns and the evolution of forms of security cooperation and crisis governance.

On 6 March, Jelle Klaas, lawyer for the Public Interest Litigation Project of the Dutch Section of the International Commission of Jurists, delivered a lecture to the students of the Advanced Master’s in European and International Human Rights Law at Leiden Law School.

Democracy in Action is a Horizon Europe-funded initiative exploring how grassroots movements, cultural spaces, and digital innovations can strengthen democratic participation. With a special focus on youth, women, ethnic minorities and night culture, we bring together researchers, grassroots movements,…

On 27 February, Rodrigo Pica, Secretary of Chile’s Constitutional Court, gave a lecture to the students of the Advanced Master’s in European and International Human Rights Law at Leiden Law School.

What are the institutional dynamics of the adoption of internal market legislation?

On Thursday 29 April 2021, Melanie Fink appeared before the European Parliament’s Working Group on Frontex Scrutiny.

The call for a social media ban for children is louder than ever. Professor of Children's Rights Ton Liefaard argues in ‘Trouw’ newspaper that this would be unwise. 'For children, online and offline aren't different worlds'.

The Spanish government has established a truth commission to address human rights violations committed during the Spanish Civil War and the subsequent Franco dictatorship. Helen Duffy, Professor of International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at the Grotius Centre, has been appointed as a commiss…

Jasmina Mačkić, assistant professor at the Europa Institute, presented her research during ‘The Dissident’, a live talk show which is organised regularly by World-Talks, on 24th May 2018. The event revolved around the Nigerian human rights defender Justus Ijeoma, the founder of the International Human…

Last week Mariana Gkliati gave a working group session in the context of the Refugee Studies reading group of the Refugee Law Initiative of the University of London.

On 20 June 2025, Melanie Fink presented her research on ‘Robo Swarms and Polygraphs: The Future of European Border Management and its Human Costs’ at the Research Workshop on ‘Migration law at the intersection of international, EU and domestic law: institutional structures and the protection of human…