Over fifty international students celebrated last Christmas at the homes of staff or students of Leiden University. As part of the Holiday Hosting Programme, the students were invited for Christmas dinner.

Carsten Stahn has just published Confronting Colonial Objects: Histories, Legalities and Access to Culture. The book is part of the OUP Cultural Heritage Law and Policy Series.

We are glad to present our new research report on Exploring the Frontiers of International Law (EFIL). International Law has traditionally been one of the flagship areas of the Leiden Law School. The report provides a taste of our rich research agenda in international law.

Where did the new generation of antislavery activists get their inspiration to organize in large-scale pressure groups?

This study is an attempt to reconstruct the muted violent past by breaking the monopoly of the Turkish state over the memory of the Armenian genocide.

Vivian Ng came back to Leiden last June to finally sign the walls of the Sweat Room. Graduated in 2020 during the pandemic, she missed out on this wonderful tradition, like so many others. While enjoying a day off in Leiden, we talked about her time as a student and her current job.

Violence during war often involves upswings and downturns that have, to date, been insufficiently explained. Why does violence at a particular point in time increase in intensity and why do actors in war decrease the level of violence at other points? Duyvesteyn discusses the potential explanatory variables…

On 1 and 2 September, colleagues of Leiden Law School participated in the very first International ELS Conference, organised by the ELS Academy in Amsterdam.

If you're in Leiden this week, you can't miss the large groups of international students exploring the city. The Orientation Week Leiden (OWL) - the twice-yearly introduction week for international students - started on Tuesday 24 January, this time with more than 400 new students. ‘Every second building…

European integration is under pressure. At the same time, the notion of a European administrative space is being explicitly voiced. But does a shared idea of the public servant exist in Europe?

This article explores how ISIS and the Taliban have fostered support through their parallel legal systems.

For early modern Europeans, the past was a measure of most things, good and bad. For that reason it was also hotly contested, manipulated, and far too important to be left to historians alone.

Leiden Law Cast is a podcast made by Leiden Law School, Leiden University, for everyone who wants to learn more about current legal issues.

From memorials to the armed forces to memory stones for individual victims. It was only later that the Holocaust took a central role in Western remembrance culture, Cleveringa Professor Frank van Vree notes. ‘Nationalists and human rights activists both invoke the experience of the Holocaust.’

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

Within the next five years, Leiden University wants its campus in The Hague to become a leading international academic centre with research and teaching that correspond with the city’s profile. All of the faculties will help achieve this, and the University has also signed a partnership agreement with…

Even though the COVID-crisis continuously evolves and is marked by new realities and uncertainties, we can carefully begin to take stock looking back on the first phases of Dutch crisis management. What can we learn reflecting on the crisis strategies of this extraordinary and transboundary crisis that…

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the European Union (EU) and its Member States have adopted wide-ranging legal and political measures to support Ukraine in its struggle.

Bernardo Almeida will give a webinar on Building land tenure systems in Timor-Leste on February 18, 2021, from 15.30 - 17.00. This webinar is organised by the KITLV.

The student loan system, implemented in 2015 in part to improve the quality of Dutch education, is facing political backlash. Despite having signed the student loan system agreement in 2015, both GroenLinks and PvdA have had a change of heart.

On Monday, April 24 the Austria Centre Leiden and the Leiden Jewish Studies Association hosted a special seminar with Prof. Edyta Gawron entitled “Politics and the Holocaust in Modern Poland.” Gawron is a historian and professor of Jewish Studies at Jagiellonian University in Kraków and a noted expert…

Practical advice, a panel discussion, and an informal networking reception: students and alumni from the MA International Relations can look back on yet another successful event last April. The diverse backgrounds and careers of the alumni vividly illustrated the range of opportunities awaiting students…

Professor Isabelle Duyvesteyn will be the new programme chair of International Studies. As of 1 September, she will be at the helm of the largest programme of the Faculty of Humanities.

Professor Bob Wessels has published a bibliography of International Insolvency Law as per January 2015. This document is an update of the 2011 bibliography and comprises sources of some 15 countries.

On 18 October, Armin Cuyvers, Associate Professor of European Law at the Europa Instituut, spoke at the Law School of Sydney University on reconciling political drama and legal realities in Brexit.

Leiden Law School and the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies are very pleased to announce that Dr. Mamadou Hébié will be re-joining the Grotius Centre on the 1st of May 2021.

Cambridge Studies in International and Comparative Law

This workshop aims at fostering and promoting the exchange of ideas on how to edit late antique and early medieval texts (mostly Latin texts, but without excluding possible extensions to the Greek field). Young scholars in particular are encouraged to present case-studies and share the editorial problems…

Preventing terrorism before it happens seems like an idea no one would disagree to. But is it possible? How do counter-radicalisation policies look like? And are there dangers of unintended consequences? Francesco Ragazzi, Assistant Professor at Leiden University’s Institute of Political Science, has…

Legitimacy is generally a term that is associated with the state. The term surfaces when there are problems with state legitimacy—when it is lacking or absent. This present volume attempts to think through the relevance of the concept of legitimacy for other political actors than the state.

From 24 to 27 January international students learn all about Leiden during the Orientation Week Leiden (OWL). On Wednesday, Leiden Science welcomed 60 new students from across the world, who are starting their master’s programme in February. The students were given the opportunity to meet their fellow…

The coronacrisis makes painfully clear that a transboundary crisis requires a transboundary response. The European Union could play a key role, but that has not happened so far. Political scientist Amy Verdun (Leiden University) explains why.

‘Dutch politics are changing, but they also are characterised by stability; that tension fascinates me.’ Sarah de Lange studies, among other things, the Dutch party system, and specifically how the rise of extremist parties influences democracy. She will start as a professor in Leiden in mid-October…

The past decade, against the backdrop of a fragmented political landscape, has witnessed the greatest changes to the Netherlands since the aftermath of the Second World War. The labour market, the housing market, the energy market, the bank system, the pension system, the healthcare system, to name…

Assistant Professor Briitta van Staalduinen has received the Best Dissertation Award from the American Political Science Association, Section on Class and Inequality. Her dissertation, Ethnic Inequality in the Welfare State, aims to reconcile the persistence of ethnic inequalities in expansive welfare…

On Friday 3rd February 2017 Leiden University hosted a PhD colloquium in conjunction with the University of Liverpool and the University of Oslo, on the topic of ‘Law and Politics in the European Union’. As part of the Interaction between Legal Systems 2.0 project, the colloquium presentations focused…

Every year, the Netherlands Red Cross and Belgian Red Cross-Flanders organise the Frits Kalshoven IHL Competition. This competition aims to provide students with an opportunity to practically engage with IHL, the rules that govern the conduct of war, by attending expert lectures and workshops, engaging…

Every year, the Netherlands and Belgium Red Cross organize the Frits Kalshoven IHL Competition, which brings together students from both Dutch and Belgian universities.

Chat with a current MSc Democracy and Representation student at Leiden University for real-life insights on the programme, student life in Leiden & The Hague, and application tips.

Chat with a current MSc Dutch Politics student at Leiden University for real-life insights into the programme, student life, studying in The Netherlands, and the application process.

Do you have a question about student life in Leiden and The Hague, studying at Leiden University or do you want more information about the Political Science master’s programme? You can get in contact with a student from this programme directly!

Chat with a current MSc student in Nationalism, Ethnic Conflict and Development at Leiden University to gain firsthand insights into the programme, student life, studying in The Hague, and the application process.

'An international environment is my natural habitat. I really thrive when I am in a setting where I am around people of all kinds of countries and cultures.'

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…

It is often said that the true character of a person is only revealed in a crisis. In these days, the coronavirus causes concern about the true state of the multilateral system. Political scientist Gisela Hirschmann (Leiden University) is worried about the future of multilateralism.

The norms, institutions and power relations that have defined the last decades of international political and economic relations in the European Union are undergoing major transformations. With the return of competition between great and ambitious powers, like the US, China, EU and Russia, the need…

On 30 October 2017, the current class of students of the advanced LL.M. programme International Children’s Rights visited the International Criminal Court in The Hague.