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…

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…

Colonial art and artefacts were not necessarily looted. Pieter ter Keurs, Professor of Museums, Collections and Society, calls for more nuance in the debate on art and collectors’ items from a loaded past. Inaugural speech on 2 December.

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'.

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).

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…

The archaeologists have been working from home three weeks now. Remotely, through Teams, we meet up with Miguel John Versluys’ research team, to see how they continue working in times of corona.

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…

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.’

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.

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.

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.

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

On Thursday 26 October, the Europa Institute held its fourth ‘Meet the Author’ event.

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

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'.

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…

On 23 June 2022, Kristof Gombeer succesfully defended his dissertation entitled ‘Relations of Duty in an Age of Rights: A study of the supply side of human rights in the context of maritime migration’.

Dear friends of the institute,

National and international actors have attempted to provide accountability for the events at Srebrenica in July 1995. This research project aims to draw lessons learned from those multiple efforts in assessing whether securing a measure of ‘justice’ for the victims has been successful and how national…

On 14 March 2016 the LLM in Immigration Law Programme and the Centre for European and International Legal Affairs (Queen Mary University of London) hosted the Expert Round Table ‘The Deadliest Frontier: Taking Stock of Mediterranean Crossings in 2015’.

Last week, to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Prof. Dr. Ton Liefaard shone a fresh light on children’s rights, in Italy.

Prof. Julia Sloth-Nielsen has been awarded the Schim van der Loeff grant by the Leiden University Fund to conduct research on unaccompanied migrant children in Zambia.

From 2-4 November Jorrit Rijpma taught the students of the Master in European Law at the European Public Law Institute in Athens.

17 November 2021. Jan Aart Scholte and co-researcher Hortense Jongen presented their work on 'Institutional Sources of Legitimacy in Multistakeholder Governance at ICANN' at the annual conference of the Netherlands Institute of Governance in Utrecht.

Mariana Gkliati participated with a paper presentation at the Panel: European borders and the role of Frontex, on 29 November in Trento.

Indonesian Law and Reality in the Mahakam Delta

How did disability become a global concern? In this project we will identify the contribution of international agencies, governmental and non-governmental organizations and, just as importantly, disabled people themselves, to the IYDP and by showing the connections, interactions and entanglements between…

Helen Duffy, professor of international law in Leiden, is Abu Zubaydah’s international lawyer and commented on the case for the BBC and other media.

On the 6th of January, Kefan Bao successfully defended a doctoral thesis. Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Kefan on this achievement!

As part of Metamorfoze, the national digitalization project for the preservation of paper heritage, journals of The Van Vollenhoven Institute’s library have been digitized.

Valentina Carraro presented her paper at the workshop ‘Collective agency of international institutions’, University of Bamberg, 6-7 October 2022.

In Summer 2015, Bob Wessels accepted a post as (visiting) External Scientific Fellow of the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for International, European and Regulatory Procedural Law.

Mariana Gkliati was invited by the Lawyers Without Borders Student Division of Aberdeen University to participate in their Annual Human Rights Conference dedicated to refugee protection.

For many years, human rights have mostly been a theme where states constituted the most important actors. Influenced by globalisation and the worldwide integration of the economy, multinational corporations have grown to feel more responsible for compliance to human rights.

On 11 April 2016 the European Center for Connstitutional and Human Rights hosted a Round Table on topics related to the EU agency Frontex.

Marta Fiocco, associate professor at the Mathematical Institute of Leiden University, has signed an agreement with the UWV (the administrative authority that implements employee insurances and provides labour market and data services) to work with their data in the research project

On November 23, 2017, Professor Simone van der Hof chaired a panel on age verification in the digital world at the Safer Internet Forum 2017 in Brussels.

Vasiliki Kosta spoke at the Magna Charta Universitatum Observatory webinar on ‘The roots of academic freedom – underlying values and human rights perspectives’ on 16 February 2023.

Political scientists John Gerring (University of Texas, Austin) and Wouter Veenendaal (Universiteit Leiden) evaluate the political implications stemming from the size of a political unit – on social cohesion, the number of representatives, overall representativeness, particularism ('pork'), citizen…