Alumnus Ben Smulders has worked for the European Commission for the past 33 years. ‘The discipline and depth that I experienced during my student days has helped me through various stages of my professional career.’

On 15 January 2019, the external relations committee of the Swiss National Council (lower chamber of the Federal Parliament) held a public hearing on the subject of the draft text for an agreement between Switzerland the European Union with new institutional rules for a number of Swiss-EU market acces…

There is a growing conflict between the US and the EU about the investigation by the Commission under the EU State aid rules into so called

Economies worldwide are increasingly interconnected; trade in raw materials and semi-finished products is increasing. Many products we use in the Netherlands originate abroad, and many products we make in the Netherlands are destined for other countries. Almost all countries around us participate in…

Reputation literature has provided crucial insights about the evolution of the US regulatory state. Daniel Carpenter’s influential account painstakingly demonstrates the relevance of reputation to bureaucratic ‘power’ and to early institutional state-building in the US context. We argue that adopting…

In this paper, the authors study how individual and country-level variables interact in affecting political gender attitudes in Europe.

The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded chemist Dr Alexander Kros a Starting Independent Researcher Grant of 1.4 million euro. He will be using the grant to study how molecules penetrate the natural barrier of a cell membrane. If his research is successful, it will in time bring about a revolution…

Iris Wuisman and Morshed Mannan of the Company Law department attended a European workshop on blockchain and the law at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence on 30 November 2017- 1 December 2017.

This week the European Commission took a major step by starting infringement proceedings against the United Kingdom. The issue at stake is the contentious Internal Market Bill introduced by Boris Johnson’s government which is contrary to the Brexit Agreement.

Several cases inspired by the Urgenda case have now been filed. For example, by the Portuguese, concerning widespread forest fires, Swiss women of a somewhat respectable age (known as the ‘KlimaSeniorrinnen’) who suffer from the heat, and the mayor of a French city situated by the sea who fears the…

Europe is working full steam towards a digital identity for every EU citizen. And although it might be really useful to be able to hire a car everywhere in the EU with no hassles, Bart Custers, Professor of Law and Data Science at eLaw, the Center for Law and Digital Technologies, sees many loose ends.…

After the Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom, Switzerland is worried about what this will mean for its relationship with the European Union.

On 8 December 2022, the day that Croatia was given the green light to fully join the Schengen area, the faculty of Law of the University of Zagreb organised the UNESCO Chair Conference on Schengen and external borders. Jorrit Rijpma, Professor of European Law was invited to address the legal and political…

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…

Meet Rosa: pleading (successfully!) in an LGBTQIA+ case before the CJEU as an early-career lawyer

Recently, the German Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) issued its second preliminary reference to the Court of Justice of the European Union. Following its earlier reference on the European Central Bank’s bond buying programme Outright Monetary Transactions, the German court now…

The 7th European Congress of Medieval Studies of the Fédération Internationale des Instituts d’Études Médiévales (FIDEM) will be organized by the Department of Arts, Media, and Philosophy of the University of Basel, Switzerland on 6-9 September 2023. Deadline for registration: 15 July.

The Europa Institute is delighted to announce the appointment of Freya Baetens to the Chair in EU External Economic Law.

The Grotius Centre unfortunately is not in a position to offer visiting fellowships or research positions, with the exception of visiting researchers within the framework of formal partnerships, such as the League of European Research Universities (LERU), or within the framework of common research p…

Leiden will be scientific capital of Europe in 2022. The theme of the festivities was announce on 28 October: Who Knows. After all, does anyone have a monopoloy on wisdom these days? Who decides what is true? And does anyone actually know what the future holds?

Margrethe Vestager, European Commissioner for Competition, will deliver the Europa Lecture on 14th June 2017 in the Grand Auditorium of the Academy Building at Leiden University.

On 24 May, Iyiola Solanke, Jacques Delors Professor in EU Law at the University of Oxford's Faculty of Law and Fellow of Somerville College, gave the annual Europa Lecture organised by Europa Institute in Leiden Law School's historic Lorentz Lecture Hall. Her lecture was entitled ‘A decolonial approach…

The Netherlands holds the presidency of the European Union for the coming six months. There are too many urgent issues for the country to spend time on Dutch political hobby horses, says Stefaan Van den Bogaert, Director of the Europa Institute.

Freek Janssen, a PhD-student in the department of Molecular Physiology, has received an award for the best oral presentation during the Young Medicinal Chemist Symposium organised by the European Federation of Medicinal Chemistry (EFMC-YMCS’16). Freek Janssen presented his work on “Development of Highly…

A starring role for PhD candidate Andreea Nadaban during the annual meeting of the European Epidermal Barrier Research Network. With her talk about the arrangement of lipid molecules in the upper layer of our skin, she won the award for Best Oral Presentation.

FIFA's new rules were introduced after the Diarra case in which a footballer wanted to unilaterally terminate his contract while it was still running. Stefaan Van den Bogaert, Professor of European Law, says in Dutch RTL news that he believes the new rules are ‘too restrictive’.

This paper aims to understand the most common underlying problems causing strategic surprise in the context of the European Union.

Andrea Evers is the new Professor of the brand-new unit of Health, Medical and Neuropsychology. She's getting off to a flying start in Leiden with a consolidator grant of the European Research Council (ERC). Her ambition? 'To work together with other disciplines; that way we can arrive at new insigh…

Carlotta Rigotti, post-doc researcher at eLaw - Center for Law and Digital Technologies, and Alexandre Puttick (Bern University of Applied Science) presented some research outputs of the Horizon Europe BIAS project during the European Workshop on Algorithmic Fairness '23.

A team of researchers at Leiden University’s Europa Institute authored an extensive study on the potential for a Climate and Energy Union within the EU constitutional framework. The study was published by the European Parliament in December 2024.

The staff of the Europa Institute possess extensive expertise on European Union law and European Human Rights law generally. Current research focuses on five areas of particular relevance for European integration.

The Europa Institute offers a regular European Law LL.M. programme and an Advanced LL.M. programme in European and International Business Law.

Between 18 and 29 March 2024, a group of 28 civil servants and policymakers from pre-accession countries participated in the Matra Rule of Law Training Programme on the Management of Borders. This event was organised and hosted by Leiden University at its campuses in Leiden and The Hague.

What is the effect of transgovernmental networks on the principles and practices of democratic accountability within national central governments?

Olga Ceran was one of the speakers at the SCEUS Young Scholars Workshop on EU studies on 14 and 15 March 2024 in Salzburg (Austria).

In the series “Ambassador’s Lecture”, KU Leuven regularly invites distinguished members of the diplomatic community and high-level members of international organisations.

Melanie Fink, Assistant Professor of European law, has received a Veni grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO). This research grant will allow Dr Fink to develop her ideas on ‘Gateways for Humanity: The Duty to Reason in the Automated State’ over a period of three years.

At the request of Dutch Parliament, Professor of European Law, Freya Baetens, wrote an expert case study on the EU-Canada Free Trade Agreement (CETA) and the EU-Indonesia Free Trade Agreement (CEPA-Indonesia). This factsheet offers parliamentarians clear, research-based insights into complex policy…

Shah recently wrote an op-ed for the Commentaries series of the Istituto Affari Internazionali in Rome, which has been published online. The piece is on India’s performance and priorities regarding the UN sustainable development goals (SDGs) and collaboration with the EU.

The Common Market Law Review is designed to function as a medium for the understanding and analysis of European Union Law, and for the dissemination of legal thinking on all matters of the European Union Law.

Together with Prof. Barbara Graham-Siegenthaler, Christa Tobler has contributed a chapter to a liber amicorum for Prof. Sebastian Heselhaus of Lucerne University (Switzerland). The subject of the chapter are the European Union’s private international law rules in the field of inheritance as laid down…

Tot voor kort was de kartering van oppervlaktevondsten de geijkte manier om het in de bronstijd bewoonde gebied in West-Friesland in kaart te brengen. In dit rapport gebaseerd op archeologisch onderzoek in 2012-2015 wordt uiteengezet wat de relatie tussen de oppervlaktevondsten en de aan- en afwezigheid…

The experimental approach of science applied to artistic research

In 2017 Sasja van der Vaart-Verschoof defended her dissertation on Early Iron Age elite burials of the Low Countries at the Faculty of Archaeology. Out of 36 applications from ten different countries, her dissertation was awarded the Prix Européen D’Archéologie Joseph Déchelette on June 15th.

Various GTGC researchers convened panels and presented papers at the 14th Pan-European Conference on International Relations: The Power Politics of Nature, that took place online from 13-17 September 2021.

The European Youth Award (EYA) is a leading pan-European competition honoring excellence in the use of internet and mobile applications for social empowerment.

Authors: Matthias Haentjens, Pierre de Gioia Carabellese

The annual conference of the European Association of Labour Court Judges (EALCJ) will be held this year in Amsterdam. From 9 to 11 June Labour Court judges from various European countries will gather at the Amsterdam Court of Appeal. Professor G.C. Boot, justice of that court and Professor of Labour…