Geert Wilders’ PVV Party believes that Islam is a totalitarian ideology and not a religion, and thus Muslims are not equally entitled to the same freedom of religion or belief as other believers. This view is incompatible with liberal democracy, according to Hans-Martien ten Napel.

Kim Stroet is examining how the interaction between teachers and pupils influences pupils’ motivation. ‘Children need to have the feeling that they are in control of their own learning process.’

On 20 November 2015, on the occasion of Universal Children’s Day, the Council of Europe and the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights launched the Handbook on European law relating to the rights of the child.

Following years of negotiations between Member States and the European Parliament, there’s finally been a breakthrough for migration policy. What does it mean for the Netherlands, exactly? Mark Klaassen, Assistant Professor in Immigration Law, discusses this on various media channels.

On 24 January an interdisciplinary workshop organised by Anna Smulders, PhD candidate at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, and Tarlach McGonagle, Professor of Media Law and Information Society, took place on the interaction between disinformation, emerging technologies and human rights.…

The research project addresses the question how complaints in the voluntary youth care system are dealt with on the municipal level and what role (municipal) Children’s Ombudspersons play in this context, through qualitative research methods.

A new website has been designed to make the Leiden Children’s Rights Observatory, which started in 2018, more accessible.

To what extent are the rights to street children violated en how can their rights be protected?

On 30 May, Gert Jan Boeve defended the thesis 'The general right of suspension'. The doctoral research was supervised by Bart Krans and Alex Geert Castermans.

Stichting Migratierecht Nederland and the Europa Institute of Leiden University are jointly organising the conference ‘Children’s Rights and Migration’ that will take place in Leiden on 26 January 2023. Researchers, lawyers, judges, policy makers and other professionals from migration legal practice…

The annual PhD training of the Netherlands Network for Human Rights Research (NNHRR) took place on 7 and 8 June at Leiden University.

In this paper, Sibgatullina and Abbas aim to illuminate the complex connections between the European right-wing movements and Islam and discusses how the adoption of Muslim identity may function as a politically strategic opportunity for European conservative forces.

In Women and Property Rights in Indonesian Islamic Contexts, eight scholars of Indonesian Islam examine women’s access to property in law courts and in village settings.

On 24 January 2025, a Workshop on ‘Protecting human rights through collective redress’ took place at the Central European University in Vienna. It was organised by Dr Zsolt Körtvélyesi in the framework of a Maria Skłodowska-Curie project on ‘Minority Rights – Towards Effective European Enforcement’.

Titia Loenen, Mariana Gkliati, and Kristel Kruisbergen are involved in organising the PhD Training of the Netherlands Network for Human Rights Research (NNHRR). The annual training is hosted for the first time in Leiden and will take place on 7 and 8 June.

On the occasion of International Human Rights Day, 10 December, an international conference was organized by the Moscow-based Сenter for Constitutional Studies.

On 11 April 2018, students of the Advanced Master’s in European and International Human Rights Law attended a lecture on the human rights situation in Mexico. The lecture was delivered by Dr. Víctor Avendaño Porras, who lectures and researches at Mexico’s CRESUR (Research Centre on Teaching Formation…

The action plan focuses on addressing key challenges posed by technological developments and trends in biomedical practices

Professor of Media Law and Information Society Tarlach McGonagle is concerned about the increase in online disinformation and hate speech. He argues that human rights should guide new policies for the online world. McGonagle will give his inaugural lecture on 9 May.

Professor Ann Skelton, Rotating Honorary Chair of Enforcement of Children's Rights 2020/2021 at the Department of Child Law, has been re-elected as member of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child.

This is the 2017 paperback release of William Michael Schmidli's The Fate of Freedom Elsewhere, which won the 2013 Foreign Affairs Magazine Best Book of the Year.

Peter Rodrigues, Professor Emeritus of Immigration and board member of the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights, recently dealt with a fascinating case in which a woman with Russian nationality felt she had suffered discrimination.

Tan, former PhD candidate Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, received the award for the best dissertation with his thesis on armed conflict, international humanitarian law and human rights law.

From 2 to 17 January, Leiden University co-organised an interdisciplinary course on children’s rights, that took place at the Centre for Studies on Justice and Society at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.

The Jaap Doek Children’s rights thesis award is an annual award for the best thesis in the field of Children’s Rights granted by Defence for Children and the Department of Child Law of the Leiden Law School. This year the thesis award will be presented for the fifth time.

On Monday 31 October the Europa Instituut had a special guest lecture by not one, but sixteen leading Russian Human Right Defenders. The Leiden Law School was very happy to host the Russian delegation, at the initiative of the Dutch Consulate General in St. Petersburg.

Prof. Ton Liefaard connected to around 150 legal professionals in India and beyond to reflect upon the COVID-response of governments from a children’s rights perspective.

Conference

This collection includes six short policy-focused contributions exploring how legislation and policy on counter cyber terrorism unfold at the national level in the United States, the United Kingdom, China, Russia, France, and at the regional level of the European Union.

Almost three years after receiving her honorary doctorate, Dr Graça Machel returned to Leiden University. Over the course of two days she spoke with students, researchers, and other interested persons, about human rights – particularly those of women and children – in a world in which these are continually…

The Max van der Stoel Human Rights Award is presented every two years on 10 December (Human Rights Day) in recognition of outstanding academic works in the field of international human rights.

On 15 February 2018, Simone van der Hof gave a keynote lecture entitled 'Data Protection and Children's Rights - the reasoning behind the protective provisions for children in the GDPR' at the International School of Amsterdam conference on Strategic marketing & communications for international scho…

In Freedom on the Offensive, William Michael Schmidli illuminates how the Reagan administration's embrace of democracy promotion was a defining development in US foreign relations in the late twentieth century.