The Role of Law in Libya’s National Reconciliation (RoLLNaR) was a research project that ran from 2017 to 2020. It identified and assessed the role of law – both actual and potential, enabling and constraining – with regard to major challenges of reconciliation in Libya. The project was led by Dr. Suliman…

This article explores how the meaning of the rule of law has evolved over the past century in UK and US parliamentary speeches, focusing on procedural (thin) and substantive (thick) conceptualisations.

While acknowledging prominent legal-philosophical debates, this project proposes a radically different approach to provide insights into the concept of the rule of law.

Whether implicitly or explicitly, we all have ideas about how the law is supposed to function, whose interests it should represent, and what role it should play in society. This project explores the ways in which these questions are addressed in the works of the Roman historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus…

The starting hypothesis of the project is that secrecy is not always inimical to democratic governance as conventional wisdom has it.

Philosophy of law is concerned with the the foundations of law.

This article studies the perceived legitimacy of EU enforcement actions.

This master’s programme introduces the student to philosophical issues concerning the foundations of law, politics, and policy. This master’s programme is meant for students who wish to combine a master’s in Law, Political Science, Public Administration, or an adjacent discipline with master’s coursework…

Legal education initiative of the Leiden University, the University of Groningen and Universitas Indonesia.

Is the legitimacy of law and governance of multilevel jurisdictions diminishing? What is the significance of (diminishing) legitimacy for the effectiveness of law? These kinds of questions about the legitimacy of the supranational formation of law, its application, and the policy and governance based…

This article investigates the causes and examines how differing public perceptions of the rule of law contribute to this trend.

The Faculty of Law is becoming more sustainable in many ways, both in teaching and research.

In recent years, the question why citizens (do not) support democratic innovations has attracted increasing academic attention. In this research note, Van Der Does & Kantorowicz for the first time empirically verify what drives citizens’ instrumental considerations in their evaluation of a DI.

Growing public backlash against international organizations (IOs) and attacks of national political elites on the rule of law increasingly challenge governance by IOs.

On 18 May 2011, Dr. Ben Knapen, Minister for European Affairs and International Cooperation, delivered the annual Van Vollenhoven Lecture on “Rule of Law and Development”.

In this article, Antoaneta Dimitrova and others explore what motivates protesters in Central and Eastern Europe.

The increase in the European Union's executive powers in the areas of economic and financial governance has thrown into sharp relief the challenges of EU law in constituting, framing, and constraining the decision-making processes and political choices that have hitherto supported European integration.…

International organisations that represent collaborations between States are becoming increasingly more powerful, and they have an increasing impact on our daily lives. For example, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasburg established that minors have a right to legal aid immediately following…

Promotor: M.T.M. Koper, Co-promotor: L. Juurlink

What are the essential determinants of (dis)trust? And, what are the effects of being (dis)trusted?

The central question in this study is: ‘What can the Netherlands learn from the way in which these countries have organized law enforcement and the rule of law in their overseas territories?’

Promotor: B. vd Water, T. Schmidt, Co-Promotor: E.H.J. Danen

This book analyses the emergence of modern parties in nineteenth-century Europe and explores their connection with the slowly developing institution of democracy.

On the brink of war, what influences decision makers to attack another country? Using innovative theoretical angles, Femke E. Bakker explores whether the basic assumptions of democratic peace theory are indeed correct. She stresses the microfoundations of conflict, questioning the assumptions on…

What is the impact of Indonesia’s democratization process on everyday state-citizen relations?

To what extent are there differences between countries in and outside the European Union and the Schengen area in the level of crimmigration, the merger between migration control and crime control, and to what extent can these differences be explained by the way in which state and non-state actors in…

Although many studies have addressed democracy in education around the world, so far research on democratic education in the context of communist society has been scarce. In the current study, we aim to clarify the concept of democratic value and its manifestation in Vietnam’s schools. In addition,…

In this paper for Defence Strategic Communications, Alastair Reed and Jennifer Dowling seek to show the importance of historical narratives to propaganda by identifying and exploring five ways in which such narratives are exploited to reinforce the extremists' 'competitive system of meaning'.

Lecture

Promotor: Prof.dr. J. Kuiper, Co-promotor: Saskia C.A. de Jager

On 19 December 2019, Reza Eftekhar defended his thesis 'The Role of the Domestic Law of the Host State in Determining the ratione materiae Jurisdiction of Investment Treaty Tribunals: The Partial Revival of the Localisation Theory'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. E. de Brabandere.

The work in this thesis describes the fundamental role of Lkb1 as a conductor of metabolism-related processes in zebrafish larvae.

Anthropology of Law in Muslim Sudan analyses the hybridity of law systems and the plurality of legal practices in rural and urban contexts of contemporary Sudan, shedding light on the complex relation between Islam and society.

How has democracy’s decline affected law making processes, enabling powerful stakeholders’ influence while minimalizing the protection of public interest and the environment?

On 29 September 2020, Tom van Ham defended his thesis 'Collective violence offenders and offending. The role of individual characteristics'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. A.A.J. Blokland, Prof. O.M.J. Adang (RUG) and Prof. Th.A.H. Doreleijers (VUMC).

In an op-ed and an interview in Dutch newspaper ‘de Volkskrant’, Reijer Passchier, Assistant Professor in Constitutional Law at Leiden University and Professor of Digitalisation and the Democratic Constitutional State at the Open University, stresses that Europe needs to take radical steps to tackle…

In the past years access to EU law has been significantly enhanced via services such as EUR-Lex. This development not only allows for easy retrieval of individual legal acts, but for collecting information about the evolution of EU law in the aggregate as well.

On 25 Februarry 2021 Hart Bloomsbury brings out a monograph by Frans-Willem Korsten: Arts as an Interface of Law and Justice: Affirmation, Disturbance, Disruption. Its working title was 'Annoyance' but that did not sell. A sign in itself; most struggles for justice have been considered as annoying.

Ruling Overseas: Connected Practices of Governance of Law

On 11 and 12 April, the kick-off conference “The role of law in Libya’s national reconciliation” took place. The conference marked the official start of a research project by the Van Vollenhoven Institute of Leiden University and the Centre for Law and Society Studies of the University of Benghazi on…

On 26 June 2019, Lisa Louwerse defended her thesis 'The EU’s Conceptualisation of the Rule of Law in its External Relations: Case Studies on Development Cooperation and Enlargement'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. C.A.P. Hillion.

Is criminal disenfranchisement compatible with a democratic political order? This article considers this question in light of a recently developed view that criminal disenfranchisement is justified because it expresses our commitment to democratic values.

Amanda gave a talk in Vienna on the role of plant foods in human evolution, including a small teaser of the FoodWays project!

Van Vark defended her dissertation 'Separation and immersion: the changing role of the armed forces in Northwestern liberal democracies’ on 17 October 2025. The doctoral research was supervised by Maartje van der Woude and Erwin Muller.

Does student and teacher gender affect students’ performance and what is the role of gender stereotypes in this relation?

This project analyses the democratic consequences of increasing decentralization and regionalization in European countries. Through an original approach that foregrounds informal political dynamics, it studies the functioning of democracy in subnational units, and investigates the effects of ever more…

We aim to understand ion homeostasis in the model eukaryote S. cerevisiae.

Here I propose to study the relationship between autonomic pupil-synchronisation and trust, at the behavioural and neural level, and examine a targeted set of possible contextual moderators.

In this article, Seda Gürkan, Özlem Atikcan and George Christou examine how EU institutions responded to Turkey’s democratic decline between 2014 and 2024, analysing how conditionality was framed and applied by the European Commission, European Parliament and European Council.