How important is a child’s right to meaningful peer relationships? Vaishnavi Ramalingam wrote her master’s thesis on this topic, and was recently awarded the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities (KHMW) Jan Brouwer Thesis Prize 2026.

On 13 April, an expert meeting to discuss the doctoral thesis of Eduardo Arenas Catalán was held at Leiden Law School. The discussion, chaired by Aart Hendriks, Professor of Health Law at Leiden Law School, included the contributions from Javier Couso Salas, Professor at Universidad Diego Portales and…

In the master’s programme in Archaeology, you can follow courses on the archaeology of Europe, deepening your understanding of the continent’s long history.

Covid-19 is een disruptieve ontwikkeling die hier en nu veel vraagt van zorgprofessionals, bestuurders en managers. Hoewel de crisis nog volop bezig is, is nu al duidelijk dat het Coronavirus een blijvende impact zal hebben op zorginstellingen en fundamentele vragen oproept over hoe we onze zorg optimaal…

Recente publicaties in de Leidse handboekenreeks zullen hieronder verschijnen.

The Dutch State is set to challenge The Hague Court of Appeal's ruling that the Netherlands must stop exporting arms to Israel at the Supreme Court. The government believes that foreign policy falls within the political domain and not within the judiciary. Geerten Boogaard, Professor of Constitutional…

Leiden researchers have developed an app that doctors can use to more easily determine the right dosage of medication for corona patients. At the moment, doctors are prescribing many existing kinds of medication to patients. Using the app, they can determine a safe and effective dosage.

Houben and Ten Oever investigate the relationship between public service obligations in EU law (PSOs) and human rights. PSOs served mainly as a correction to free market forces and did not originate from a human rights perspective.

From 1-2 December 2022, the Frontex fundamental rights team met for a Workshop to reflect on their role and discuss current issues. Melanie Fink, Assistant Professor of European Law, was invited to contribute to the discussion with insights from her research on Frontex’s obligations and responsibili…

The book 'The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child' is the result of the international academic conference – ’25 Years CRC’ – which was held in November 2014 in Leiden on the occasion of the 25th birthday of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Democracy in Action is a Horizon Europe-funded initiative exploring how grassroots movements, cultural spaces, and digital innovations can strengthen democratic participation. With a special focus on youth, women, ethnic minorities and night culture, we bring together researchers, grassroots movements,…

We are pleased to invite abstracts for a conference on ‘Advancing Social, Economic, and Cultural Rights in a Polarised, Digitalised, and Unequal World’ to be held at Leiden University on 4 and 5 September 2025, in collaboration with Netherlands Network for Human Rights Researh (NNHRR).

Upon invitation by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, a large group of academics submitted a third party intervention in a case against France. On 2 November, the Committee decided to follow the intervention’s main conclusion.

On 13 May 2025, Melanie Fink presented her latest research on the role of the duty to reason and other explanation rights to safeguard human dignity in the automated state at the AI & Law Summer School hosted by the University of Tübingen.

Darinka Piqani visited the Law Faculty of the University of Tirana (Albania) on 16-20 January 2023 and lectured on the transparency and the right to information in EU law. These lectures were held in the context of the Research Expertise from the Academic Diaspora (READ) Fellowship that Dr Piqani holds…

Research on 45 years of legal and economic data for 132 countries by international team shows the addition of one right for LGB people is associated with over $2000 in GDP per capita

It can seem like an almost childish mistake, but a surprising number of adults confuse left from right. Neuroscientists are only just starting to know more about directional and navigation and understand why it is so difficult to distinguish left from right . Ineke van der Ham is an expert on navigation.…

Mark Klaassen presenter at the Reuniting Families: From Access to Integration event organized by the EU office of the Red Cross in Brussels.

Mozambican politician and child rights activist Graça Machel speaks October 27 at Leiden University about her work.

It often takes longer for women with heart problems to get the right diagnosis. In her Annie Romein-Verschoor Lecture, Professor Hester den Ruijter will talk about how hormones influence the heart and the importance of medical research that focuses specifically on women.

On Thursday 22 January, the Honours College Law New Year's event addressed the urgent issue of femicide. Experience-based expert Anne-Marije van den Bersselaar and assistant professors Mojan Samadi and Ellen Gijselaar explored the topic from personal and legal perspectives.

On Thursday 22 January, the Honours College Law New Year's event addressed the urgent issue of femicide. Experience-based expert Anne-Marije van den Bersselaar and assistant professors Mojan Samadi and Ellen Gijselaar explored the topic from personal and legal perspectives.

On Wednesday 11 October 2017 the African Studies Centre Leiden and the Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance and Society are organizing a workshop.

The European Commission adopted a proposal regarding common rules promoting the right to repair for consumers.

Over the last few years, human Rights have become subject of intense debates in historiography. Sam Moyn’s provocative book The Last Utopia (2010) made in particular clear how important it is to investigate precisely which meaning human rights have been given in a particular context. During the research…

New research report and policy brief by Carolien Jacobs (VVI) and Bernardo Almeida (VVI)

On Wednesday 7 December 2016 the Government Commission for Reassessment of parenthood (Staatscommissie Herijking ouderschap) presented the report ‘Child and Parents in the 21st century’ to Minister Van der Steur of Security and Justice. Prof. dr. Ton Liefaard, UNICEF Professor of Children’s Rights at…

Award ceremony

Economic law, environmental law and human rights are important fields of law for sustainable development. But they do not interact sufficiently, which makes it difficult to implement sustainable development.

On 28 and 29 January 2020 the workshop ‘Law, Rights, and Governance in Africa. A look to the Future’ was held at Leiden Law School.

On Tuesday 4 March, Marie-Cécile Rouillon, Coordinator on the Rights of the Child at the European Commission came to give a guest lecture to students of the Advanced LLM in Children’s Rights as well as the Jeugdrecht master’s programme.

22 September 2017 the second biannual conference took place organised by IAAEU of the University of Trier and the Hugo Sinzheimer Institute of Frankfurt. The theme of the conference was the European Pillar of Social Rights. Under the heading of the conference’s title, International Labour Law as a stimulus…

In the first episode of the podcast series, Andrei Marin, Associate Professor at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, interviews Marja Spierenburg, Professor of Anthropology of Sustainability and Livelihoods and Scientific Director at Leiden University, along with Diana Vela Almeida, Assistant…

Taylor Swift wants to stop people from creating AI-generated images and audio of her. Dirk Visser, Professor of Intellectual Property Law, says it is unclear whether this will have any effect.

Jaarlijks looft de Stichting tot Gedachtenis scriptieprijzen uit voor (Research) Master studenten die zijn verbonden aan Nederlandse en Belgische universiteiten. Onderwerp van de scriptie dient in lijn met de doelstelling van de stichting, die onderzoek naar de dodengedachtenis Nederlanden tot aan het…

On Thursday 14 December at 16.15 hrs Michal Diamant will defend her doctoral thesis that addresses the right to assess the budget of the Dutch parliament in light of European economic governance. The defence will take place at the Academy Building of Leiden University. Supervisors are Professor Wim…

On September 13 and 14 Utrecht University, Leiden University and Maastricht University are organizing a two day conference on Procedural rights in criminal proceedings in the European Union, offering a venue for practitioners and young scholars to exchange experiences and ideas on this subject matter.…

On 26 January, Rowie Stolk, Laura Hanrath and Marloes Noorloos spoke at the lecture ‘The Right to Demonstrate under Scrutiny’. This discussion session, part of the university lecture series Community. Conversation. Connection., was organised in response to difficult questions about the right to demo…

On September 13 and 14 Utrecht University, Leiden University and Maastricht University are organizing a two day conference on Procedural rights in criminal proceedings in the European Union, offering a venue for practitioners and young scholars to exchange experiences and ideas on this subject matter.…

To what extent does the Law Ombudsperson for Children achieve its goals as intended by the legislator when introducing the law?

On Tuesday 26 November 2019, a collaboration between The Hague University of Applied Sciences (THUAS) and Leiden University was launched in relation to the journal International Labor Rights Case Law (ILaRC).

The Social Domain Platform organized a regional meeting on homelessness on September 30 at the Pauluskerk in Rotterdam. At the invitation of Valente, the trade association for organizations that provide support to vulnerable people in our society, Martijn van den Brink was invited to speak about the…

On Thursday 8 June 2017 Melanie Fink, Postdoctoral Researcher at the Europa Institute, participated in the Legal Seminar ‘EU Law and Undocumented Migrants: Defending Rights in the Context of Detention & Deportation’.

According to a study conducted by multiple research institutes, governments and law enforcements should widen the scope of their focus to right-winged terrorists such as Andres Breivik. The Guardian issued an in-depth analysis of their work last week.

The Dutch conservative VVD party plans to make the right to family reunification more difficult for people with temporary residence permits. In Germany, this restriction led to several lawsuits which were won by status holders. Mark Klaassen, Assistant Professor in Migration Law, believes this is a…

Alumna Jolien Schukking has been working as a judge at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg since 2017. In this special role, she provides legal protection at an international level in major cases and concerning various topics. What is her job like and what motivates her?

Canadian Roméo Dallaire (1946) was UN Commander in Rwanda at the time of the genocide there, subsequently becoming a champion of human rights. He has worked as a researcher at several different universities, and was a senator in Canada for nine years. Dallaire will give this year's Cleveringa lecture…