In this article, Tom Buitelaar proposes a systematic framework for analyzing the impact of individual characteristics of peacekeeping leaders on the behaviour of field-level personnel in UN peacekeeping operations.

Joe Finnerty has co-edited the 2026 Symposium in the Human Rights Law Review entitled Legitimate Aims and Ulterior Purposes in International Human Rights Law: Comparative Perspectives.

Discover the Summer School Frontiers of Children’s Rights by Leiden Law Academy, with this year's theme of accountability and access to justice. Read more here!

This book examines the impact of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) on national and international jurisprudence, since its adoption in 1989.

This research paper seeks to examine the nature of the nexus between right-wing extremism and the military by surveying five potential consequences (i.e., problem areas) arising from the presence of right-wing extremists within the armed forces of twelve Western countries.

As children learn, develop and acquire more skills, their legal position also changes. Professor of Children’s Rights Ton Liefaard works closely together with Leiden social sciences researchers to shed light on these growing capacities and their implications for our legal system. ‘Our ideas about children’s…

Industrialised countries extract natural resources in the territories of indigenous peoples, and appropriate the knowledge and culture of these peoples. Leiden anthropologists work to protect the rights of indigenous peoples. Their knowledge and advice enable governments to source sustainable produc…

On 5 September, Elize de Mul defended the thesis 'Digital Döppelgangers: identity in the Culture of Imagination'. The doctoral research was supervised by Simone van der Hof and Esther Keymolen.

On 16 January 2024, Professor Obiora Okafor from Johns Hopkins University opened the third cycle of the Owada Chair with the lecture Global Diversity and the Living International Human Rights Law.

Taking Mozambique as a case study, the aim of this research is to develop a methodology for improving flood risk assessments by extending hydrological records using paleo hydrologic evidence of past floods, combined with a socio-legal assessment of the land rights of those impacted by climate change…

On 26 juni 2018, Claire Achmad defended her doctoral thesis 'Children’s Rights in International Commercial Surrogacy: Exploring the Challenges from a Child Rights, Public International Law Perspective'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. Dr. Mariëlle Bruning.

The Digital Humanities and Cultural Analytics minor will be offered in the 2026 academic year, and replaces the 2025/2026 Digital Humanities and AI Minor.

Are you thinking about studying this Advanced LL.M. International Children's Rights? Learn more and watch the videos.

Workshops, lectures

To develop a new generation of brain science (and train scientists) focused on explaining complex real-world behavioural patterns.

The heritage of Indigenous Peoples has long been researched and commented upon from the outside. This book adopts an innovative approach by engaging with the heritage of Indigenous Peoples from the ‘inside’.

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Audiovisual and Digital Ethnography is a state-of-the-art introduction to this dynamic and growing subject. The authors explain its fundamental aspects in a clear and systematic way.

Choosing a study programme is fun and exciting, but it’s not always easy. Your choice of study is a major decision; after all, it is about your future. At the same time, it’s good to remember that this choice will not determine the rest of your life.

This socio-legal research focuses on the impacts of environmental displacement on land rights and land-related conflict in Mozambique in the aftermath of cyclone Idai, and on the role of the legal framework in addressing these problems.

This research project from Leiden University looks at the opportunities and threats that flow from the existence of institutional and normative diversity in the area of fundamental rights for the effective protection of those rights in a pluralist world.

This inaugural lecture discusses the question: How to cooperate in the digital era?

While self-driving cars and autonomous weapon systems have received a great deal of attention in media and research, the general requirements of ethical life in today’s digitalizing reality have not been made sufficiently visible and evaluable.

Valentina Carraro explores the relationship between overlapping UN human rights institutions, specifically the treaty bodies and the Universal Periodic Review (UPR)

On 18 March 2020, Hoko Horii defended her thesis ‘Child Marriage as a Choice. Rethinking agency in international human rights’. The doctoral research was supervised by prof. A.W. Bedner and prof. G.A. van Klinken.

On 7 September, Francesc Claret Traid defended the thesis 'On the nature of the right to resist: a rights-based theory of the ius resistendi in liberal democracies'. The doctoral research was supervised by Afshin Ellian and Gelijn Molier.

In this article, Barrie Sander together with his colleagues explore whether fairness in digital governance inadvertently entrenches structural inequalities

Leiden University College and the Erasmus Center of Law and Digitalization, with the support of the Sectorplan SSH-Breed on Digitalization and the Netherlands Network for Human Rights Research, are announcing a Call for Abstracts for a two-day workshop, Digital and AI Governance at a Time of Geopolitical…

The abundance of images in our everyday lives-and the speed at which they are consumed-seems to have left us unable to critique them. To rectify this situation, artists such as Daniel Richter, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, and Artur Zmijewski have demonstrated that painting is brilliantly equipped to produce…

The ECtHR needs to provide effective rights protection, but it also needs to set clear standards while showing deference to decisions made at the national level. Especially when socio-economic issues are concerned, meeting these different demands is a challenging task.

Human Rights at Risk brings together social scientists, legal scholars, and humanities scholars to analyze the policy challenges of human rights protection in the twenty-first century.

Sweetie 2.0 is a research project commissioned by Terre des Hommes on online child sex tourism and criminal law.

In this project, researchers and lecturers from LUCAS, ICLON and UBL join forces to publish expertise and experience in the field of machine learning and AI as open learning materials for secondary education.

How can child participation be defined, what is the importance of child participation and how can it be promoted?