Children have the right to play and relax. Games, social media and video platforms are attractive new ways to do that. However, hardly any online games are designed specifically for children, nor do they factor in children's rights.

On 26 January 2023, a conference was held at Leiden Law School on children’s rights and migration. The conference, organised by Stichting Migratierecht Nederland (SMN) and the Europa Institute of Leiden University, was attended by academics, lawyers, judges, policymakers, and other legal professionals…

For refugee children, the right to information is of great importance to make their voice heard. Stephanie Rap is studying the child’s right to participate in the asylum procedure. She has also studied the working method of the Dutch Council for Refugees in this context.

How can groundbreaking research help Europe tackle the huge challenges it faces? At the launch of the Leiden Europe Hub, academics and policymakers discussed this in the heart of European democracy: the European Parliament.

On 26 June 2025, Melanie Fink delivered a presentation titled 'Good Administration in the Age of AI: Explanation Rights and Human Oversight under EU Law' at the European Ombudsman.

On the 6th of December, Céril van Leeuwen has won the Jaap Doek Children’s rights thesis award for her thesis ‘The right to be heard restricted: is this desirable in the civil law proceedings?’ This award, for the best master thesis in the area of Children’s Rights, is annually granted by Defence for…

This summer the department of Labour Law at Leiden University will start a new tradition of an annual summer school addressing current issues in labour law from an international, transnational and European point of view. With a mixture of lectures, seminars and a field trip, topics will be explored…

Advanced Summer School on the European Union and the United Nations in The Hague. Explore global governance, EU–UN cooperation, simulations and institutional visits. Apply by 22 May 2026.

The United Kingdom’s relationship with the European Union was supposed to be definitively settled several times during the past decade – yet it was not. The 2016 referendum brought about a surge in interest in legal questions, especially of EU law and international economic law. This presented scholars…

Misha Plagis, assistant professor at the Grotius Centre of Public International Law wrote a paper together with Dr Nicole De Silva (Concordia University) entitled 'NGOs, international courts, and state backlash against human rights accountability: Evidence from NGO mobilization against Tanzania at the…

In a collaborative effort between the Leiden Children’s Rights Observatory, the Leiden Law Academy, UNICEF and the Petitions Section of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, a symposium held last week commemorated the tenth anniversary of the Optional Protocol to the Convention…

The role of domestic and wild resource exploitation in Bronze Age subsistence

Recently the Department of Child Law of Leiden Law School (Leiden University) launched the Leiden Children’s Rights Observatory.

On 10 February 2025, Melanie Fink presented her recently awarded NWO Veni project at Leiden University’s SAILS Lunch Time-seminars.

On 28 October 2021, Matthew Hoye presented his paper during a seminar organized by the GTGC Global Justice and Human Rights group. His paper was about the Remittances and Global Justice: Paradoxes and Potentials.

Willem van der Muur's article on Indonesia's recent recognition of indigenous land rights was published by New Mandala.

The case note examines the recent views adopted by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child on a communication against Belgium.

On 6 September 2019, the Governor of Murang'a County, Mwangi wa Iria, signed a declaration at Leiden University to protect the rights of children.

Leiden University would like to express its concern about the proposed Hungarian higher education draft law, which, if adopted, would make the functioning of Central European University (CEU) in Budapest nearly impossible. These changes would endanger the academic freedom vital for CEU’s continued operation…

The 18th Biennial EUSA conference, with the theme 'Beyond Sui Generis? Understanding the EU as a Comparative Polity and an Interdisciplinary Subject', took place on 4 to 6 May 2023 at the University of Pittsburgh (PA), USA. The Europa Institute was represented by Dr Moritz Jesse and Dr Darinka Piqan…

Wars, climate change and the effects of covid have caused a global decline in children’s well-being. In her inaugural lecture Ann Skelton, Professor of Children’s Rights in a Sustainable World, points to the disastrous effects of multiple interacting crises.

The latest newsletter of the Master of Laws Programme: Advanced Studies in International Children’s Rights and the UNICEF Chair in Children’s Rights of Leiden Law School, Department of Child Law has been published.

Paul Brakefield, Professor of Evolutionary Biology at the Institute of Biology in Leiden (IBL) has been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant for his research. He will receive 2.5 million euro to develop his research programme over a period of five years.

On 28 February 2019 the Stichting Bob Wessels Insolvency Law Collection will hold a PhD workshop on European/International Insolvency Law to which PhD students form Europe and beyond are invited. It provides PhD students with a venue to present their ideas, but also the challenges and questions they…

What does the UN seek to achieve though global observance days, weeks and years and how have these initiatives impacted the role of the organization in forwarding the agenda of human rights?

The Horizon 2020 project ImageInLife has started on 1 January, followed by a kick-off meeting at the coordinating University of Montpellier at the end this month. This Marie Skłodowska-Curie training network brings together European groups that work on the imaging of vertebrates and offers fourteen…

On the 2nd of June, Valentina Carraro gave a lecture on the complementarity of human rights reviewing mechanisms in the United Nations and presented an original framework to assess the extent to which institutions within regime complexes repeat or contradict each other when delivering recommendations…

The Department of Child Law and the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies of Leiden University are now accepting applications for the Frontiers of Children’s Rights in the Caribbean Region Spring School.

Various projects at Leiden University have been awarded an Erasmus+ grant, an EU funding tool. This is a substantial boost to the internationalisation of our research and teaching.

The question of land property titles is a common source of conflict between indigenous communities and federal authorities all over the Americas. A new Panamanian law have led indigenous communities to reach out to archaeologist Dr Natalia Donner. A grant from the Centre for Indigenous American Studies…

From 13 to 24 June 2022, the Summer School on the European Union, the United Nations and Global Governance, supported by the Erasmus+ (Jean Monnet) Programme was held for the second time.

In collaboration with the De Waag Technology & Society, Simone van der Hof of the Centre for Law and Digital Technology (eLaw department) will develop a code for digital children's rights based on the example of the age appropriate design code in Great Britain.

Representatives of the Andean Community (Comunidad Andina/CAN) and its Member States met in Quito, Ecuador last month and approved a decision creating the ‘Andean Committee of Government Authorities on the rights of Indigenous Peoples.’

This article devises a framework to assess the degree to which human rights bodies provide duplicating or contradicting recommendations to States. Focusing on the case of torture, it creates an original database of recommendations delivered to 14 countries in the years 2012–2016. Results show that duplications…

In recent years, much research has been conducted at the Department of Labour Law on the topic of sustainability and fundamental labour rights. Linked to this field is a journal: the International Labor Rights Case Law Journal (ILaRC).

Food security is increasingly under pressure due to rising inequality, climate change, and armed conflict. From 28 October, Leiden University College (LUC) in The Hague offers a seven-week course

On 12 December 2019, Dr Yannick van den Brink, assistant professor at the Department of Child Law and Rubicon Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge, gave a keynote speech at the conference ‘Strengthening Juvenile Justice Systems in Europe’, which was organised in Valencia, Spain.

In the presence of their families and friends, the thesis supervisors personally addressed each of the students and presented them with their well-deserved master diploma in the Academy Building’s Klein Auditorium.

Applications are now open for the Summer School ‘The European Union, the United Nations and Global Governance’ (12 - 23 June 2023) for Master-level and PhD students. The activity is supported by the European Union’s Jean Monnet programme (Erasmus+).

Professor Barend Mons has been appointed Chair of the Commission High Level Expert Group

Edward Elgar has recently published an edited volume entitled “Realising Protection from Age Discrimination: International, Regional, and National Perspectives”. The book has been edited by Helen Meenan (visiting professor at Kingston University, UK) and Christa Tobler (Europa Institutes of the Universities…

Food security touches upon human rights, international law and sustainable development. These frameworks are not separate worlds but deeply interconnected; something that becomes painfully clear in times of climate crisis, armed conflict and inequality.

PhD candidate Agnes van Steen researched the history of the Leiden women’s rights movement (1860-1990) and found that the university produced many feminists.

This series of publications brings together new material on wellconsidered themes within the wide area of Early Modern Studies.

Providing a valuable overview of regionalism throughout the entire continent, Regionalism in Modern Europe combines both geographical and thematic approaches to examine the origins and development of regional movements and identities in Europe from 1890 to the present.

This article examines Russia’s use of low-level agents in covert operations across Europe since 2022, analysing a dataset of 145 cases to identify patterns in recruitment, demographics and network structure using social network analysis.