From self-driving cars to innovative drug development: artificial intelligence (AI) will fundamentally change our lives in many different ways. We study this technology at a deep and fundamental level. And we seek answers to questions about liability and privacy, for example. Our researchers from…

Tim Koopmans is one of the great minds in the history of Dutch and European legal scholarship. He taught law as a professor in Leiden and other universities, among which Ghent, Cambridge, Utrecht. He practiced it as a judge in the European Court of Justice and Advocate-General in the Dutch Supreme Court,…

The Hague is a fast-growing student city in the Netherlands, offering great study and career opportunities to students from all over the world.

Public authorities fail to inform citizens, or inform them too little or too late, about the use of algorithmic profiling in administrative decisions. This is clear from research conducted by Anne Meuwese and Fatma Çapkurt on the legally and practically responsible use of profiling algorithms.

Lecture

Leiden and The Hague are real student cities and has everything you’ll need to turn your time as a student into the time of your life. Read more about student life.

Student life in Leiden and The Hague. We will tell everything about this real student citues to make sure you have the time of your life!

Leiden University College (LUC), an institute of Leiden University in The Hague – the international city of peace, justice, and security – offers the English-taught Bachelor's degree in Liberal Arts and Sciences: Global Challenges since 2010. Inspired by the American university college model, LUC combines…

Leiden University College (LUC), an institute of Leiden University in The Hague – the international city of peace, justice, and security – offers the English-taught Bachelor's degree in Liberal Arts and Sciences: Global Challenges since 2010. Inspired by the American university college model, LUC combines…

How did changes in the composition and exploitation of princely domains in various principalities of the Low Countries influence the development of ‘modern’ public finance systems, including the notion of public debt?

Islamic State may be losing ground rapidly, but Syrian President Assad's position is gaining strength. His torture chambers and the battlefield are scenes of countless criminal acts. Will these crimes ever come to trial, at the International Criminal Court, for example?

Two citizens, together with organisations including Amnesty International, antidiscrimination agency RADAR and the Dutch Section of the International Commission of Jurists (NJCM) have brought legal action against the State. They want the court to put an end to the discriminating border controls of the…

According to Law student Jasmijn van Lochem, you can learn a lot in seven months. For the ‘Onderzoeksassistent’ (Research Assistant) course, part of the Honours College Law, she conducted research on the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights in collaboration with Misha Plagis, Assistant Professor…

The powerful Dutch East India Company and West India Company were summoned before the High Court more often than historians have assumed. The complainants varied from competitors, to the Companies' own staff and even poor citizens. This is what Leiden historian Kate Ekama has discovered. PhD defence…

Historians and experts in American studies from Leiden University are holding an online international conference about the arrival of the Pilgrims in America and the consequences for the indigenous societies. We asked four questions to two of its organisers, American Studies expert Joke Kardux and historian…

The court has dismissed Ratko Mladić’s appeal and upheld his life sentence for genocide and war crimes. The verdict is one of Yugoslavia tribunal’s last. Mission accomplished?

Twaalf rechtenstudenten krijgen tot maart 2025 de kans om achter de schermen te kijken bij rechtbank Den Haag via het Honours College Law-vak ‘Masterclass rechtbank Den Haag’. Studenten Quinten Heerma en Eva Verdellen delen hun ervaringen met deze Masterclass.

How is law shaped by and shaping social, political and economic change in Indonesia?

See below for the full programme and abstracts of all papers.

Course, Summer School

We'll give you 10 reasons why you should study the specialization Peace, Justice and Development of the master Public International Law at Leiden University

Managing Diversity: Supervising Functions in Managing Colonial Workplaces

LUC's Liberal Arts and Sciences programme offers you the opportunity to specialise in one of six Majors while keeping the Global Challenges at the centre of your studies.

Since the late 1990s Leiden University has been located in two cities: Leiden and The Hague. Leiden is where the University was founded and still forms its heart, with six of the seven faculties being housed there. The faculty of Governance and Global Affairs is located in The Hague and most of the…

This project aims to explore, in general, what explains civil servants’ attitudes and behavior, and, in particular, why some civil servants are more committed to professional norms and public service values – such as impartiality, equity, efficiency, and innovation – than others.

Het Amerikaanse hooggerechtshof oordeelde op 1 juli dat een president tijdens hun ambtsperiode een zekere immuniteit heeft. Zij zijn onschendbaar in geval van ‘officiële handelingen’. Tessa van Buchem uit haar zorgen en kritiek in het FD.

At the initiative and expense of His Majesty King Willem‑Alexander, Leiden University will conduct a study into the role of the House of Orange‑Nassau in Dutch colonial history. The project will run from 2023 to 2026.

Leiden Asia Departments

In this paper, the authors study how individual and country-level variables interact in affecting political gender attitudes in Europe.

Showing your face at dinners and parties at court: it was the way to get noticed by the king in William I's time. Joost Welten's latest book reveals how, during the reign of William I, the elite danced around his throne both literally and figuratively.

The newly established Luxembourg Centre for European Law held its inaugural conference on 10-11 October 2025, exploring the theme of “European Union law and values in a changing world”. Martijn was invited to speak about the relationship between European values and democracy.

The amici curiae brief was filed with the United States District Court for the Central District of California, on 28 January 2020.

When politicians claim they can make major differences with their migration policies, they’re raising false expectations. The opportunities for the government to restrict migration are in fact very limited. And what about the little room they do have? Mark Klaassen’s advice is to make use of those opportunities…