Het Leids onderzoek naar gedwongen uithuisplaatsingen van kinderen heeft veel stof doen opwaaien. Op een congres bespraken meer dan 250 mensen het onderzoek verder om zo de situatie voor ouders en kinderen in de toekomst te verbeteren.

Students of the Advanced MSc in International Relations and Diplomacy visited the OPCW and ICJ in The Hague, gaining insights into key international organisations.

The Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport is to appeal against a recent court ruling on the Public Access to Government Information Act (Wet openbaarheid van bestuur, WOB). The court ruled that the way in which the Ministry handles WOB requests was not in accordance with the law.

Theft, prostitution, fortune-telling or murder. Historian Manon van der Heijden and a group of students are researching court records from The Hague from 1600 to 1800. They are tracing crimes and offenders and shedding new light on The Hague’s Gevangenpoort (or Prison Gate). Among their many discoveries…

Martin Richardson, who graduated in 1997 from what was then the Leiden LLM Programme in European Community Law (now: Leiden Adv LLM European and International Business Law, EIBL), has recently been appointed as a Senator of the College of Justice in Scotland, meaning that he is now a judge of the highest…

Conference

This month, it came out that a subdistrict court judge used ChatGPT to formulate a ruling. The judge included some text generated by the popular AI chatbot in his decision. This resulted in a lot of media commotion, raising doubts as to whether using ChatGPT in court is permissible and responsible.

On 22 January, a panel of international experts on nuclear deterrence gathered at the Campus The Hague to discuss the future of nuclear deterrence in Europe. The panel addressed key aspects of nuclear strategy and the impact of Russia's nuclear rhetoric in the context of the war in Ukraine.

Increasingly, citizens are going to court to challenge decisions by the Public Prosecution Service not to prosecute in certain, sometimes socially sensitive, cases. Yet, these citizens are not always taken seriously as democratically engaged persons. A mistake, says Sophie Koning.

The Dutch public broadcasting organisation NPO has asked State Secretary for Culture and Media Gunay Uslu to revoke the licence of Ongehoord Nederland. Wouter Hins, emeritus professor of media law, explains how unique the NPO’s request is.

On 22 June 2022, the research group on Institutions for Conflict Resolution organised its second annual overarching PhD lab. During this meeting, the PhD researchers connected to COI presented the current status of their research projects.

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

Can politicians say whatever they want? What is the limit and when can the Public Prosecution Service act? PhD candidate Jip Stam examined the limits of free speech in criminal law. 'Intervening too soon can threaten democracy and the rule of law,' he warns.

Mia Thomaïdou wants to investigate how criminal courts understand and use the increased knowledge of human behavior. Her Rubicon grant allows for two years of research at the Rutgers University School of Criminal Justice. Leiden behavioral scientist Thomaïdou will be living in New York, where as part…

Houdt de rechtbank tijdens een echtscheiding wel voldoende rekening met de ervaringen van een kind? Onderzoek van Villa Pinedo toont aan dat kinderen vaak vrezen het verkeerde te zeggen tegen rechters. Hoogleraar jeugdrecht Mariëlle Bruning praatte erover met NRC.

Shell Nigeria is liable for damages from oil spills in Nigeria. The Hague Court of Appeals gave this ruling in a case that was brought by four Nigerian farmers.

At the 24-th session of the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute, held in The Hague 1-6 December, the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies played a prominent role, contributing cutting-edge research and expert insights to key debates on international law.

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.’

Whereas the Netherlands Court of Audit used to conduct an investigation once a year, the average civil service organisation now has a few per year to contend with. Is so much going wrong nowadays? Not at all, says Professor by Special Appointment Sjoerd Keulen. ‘It’s one of the methods that makes democracy…

The Faculty’s traditional New Year’s reception, like everything else these days, was transformed into an online event this year. Dean Paul Wouters as the host led us through the programme filled with the Casimir Teaching Award, the Pieter de la Court Medals, the Master’s Thesis Prizes, and a short lecture…

Volgens het Europese Hof van Justitie zijn de regels van de FIFA die de basis vormen voor miljoenentransfers in het wereldwijde profvoetbal in strijd met de Europese wetgeving. Stefaan Van den Bogaert, hoogleraar Europees Recht, sprak met het AD en RTL over de mogelijke gevolgen.

Over the past year, many students and staff members of Leiden Law School have been lauded for their extraordinary achievements. For instance: a grant received, an award won, or an appointment by a special committee. We have combined all these achievements in our Honours Gallery 2022:

The Global Summit, which took place from 12-16 January 2021, is an initiative by Richard Albert, the William Stamps Farish Professor in Law, Professor of Government, Director of Constitutional Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, and Founder & Director of the International Forum on the Future…

Leiden researchers Reinout Vriesendorp, Jessie Pool, and Harold Koster from the Department Corporate Law and Jan Adriaanse and Marc Broekema from the Department Business Studies are about to start a collaboration with Groningen University. The WODC (the knowledge centre in the field of the Dutch Ministry…

On 6 March, this year’s Thorbecke Lecture was held in Leiden. Christoph Van der Elst of the Faculty of Law and Criminology at Ghent University delivered the lecture entitled: ‘The digital economy and the digital organisation’.

The Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies is delighted to announce that Dr Farouk El-Hosseny will join the teaching staff as Visiting Assistant Professor of International Law.

Many of our department’s staff members are actively involved in the Empirical Legal Studies lab and strive towards publishing impactful empirical legal research.

The cargo lost at sea as a result of the MSC Zoe disaster should be considered environmental pollution and information about it should be made public. This was the case made by Leiden Law School’s Leiden Advocacy Project on Plastic (LAPP). Following their investigation, the government has finally decided…

Private businesses will probably soon refuse access to non-vaccinated persons in the near future. But this is more difficult when it comes to public amenities. Aart Hendriks, Professor of Health Law at Leiden Law School, contributed to an article in Dutch newspaper NRC saying that he anticipates that…

ICT

Professor Dr. Carsten Stahn LLM., Professor of International Criminal Law and Global Justice at the University of Leiden, completed his habilitation in July 2020 at the Humboldt-University zu Berlin and acquired the Venia for Constitutional Law, International Law and International Criminal Law. The…

A new graphene-based method could make for faster, cheaper and more accurate DNA sequencing, say a group of Leiden physicists and chemists.

Education

A higher level of legal firearm availability does not lead to more violent deaths in Europe but does lead to more female deaths.

When do we say violence was used in an incident? The answer may seem obvious at first. But interim results from a study by Jolien van Breen show that Dutch people are labelling events in increasingly broad contexts as violent.

Yes, the new Humanities Campus is going to be smaller in size. But no, that doesn’t mean there’ll be any shortage of space. The available area and a creative design will give us all the room we need. So what will such a design look like? Take a look for yourself in the Arsenaal, the Pieter de la Court…

Camille Lefebvre, PhD candidate at the Graduate School of International Studies of Université Laval and the Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance and Society of Leiden Law School, has been selected as a recipient of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Fellowship and Leadership Program.