AI, data and algorithms are developing at breakneck speed, while legislation inevitably lags behind. But laws and regulations are essential – look no further than the Dutch childcare benefits scandal.

Effects of maternal smoking, premature birth, intra-uterine growth retardation and asphyxia on child development.

Foute taal? Bestaat niet!

In 2016 the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) entered into force. The GDPR aims to give control to individuals over their personal data and to simplify the regulatory environment for international businesses by unifying regulation within the EU. PhD candidate Helena Ursic-Vrabec examined the…

There is much unrest among local stallholders in Utrecht. Owners who for decades had a permanent pitch for their stall are no longer guaranteed this due to new European regulations. So no more benefits for the current stallholders which is causing them great uncertainty and frustration.

PhD Candidate Sabine K. Witting has published an article ‘Regulating bodies: child sexuality in the digital era’ in the Critical Quarterly for Legislation and Law, Vol. 1 2019.

The coming two years the Van Vollenhoven Institute (VVI, Leiden University) and ICEL (the Indonesian Center for Environmental Law) will collaborate to improve environmental regulation in Indonesia.

LAPP student Heidi Kaarto and project leader Esther Kentin published an article on the right to regulate in relation to an EU ban on microplastics in a special issue on plastic regulation of Review of European, Comparative & International Environmental Law.

In 2014, the Dutch Ministry of Defence received signals from employees and former employees suspecting that they had become ill from working with chrome paint and CARC. Among them, former and current employees who had previously worked at the former American storage sites (POMS-sites). As a response,…

On 16 November 2022, the Europa Institute hosted an online panel discussion on the fragmentation of the application of the EU antitrust rules across the EU. The event inaugurated the Leiden Competition Talks webinar series on the functioning of the EU antitrust enforcement framework.

PhD candidate at the Parenting, Child Care and Development programme group Wei Li examined longitudinally the role of parents in self-regulation of young children in the Netherlands and China during their first two years of life. Li also specifically focused on the role of grandparents in China. This…

Dovilė Rimkutė, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Public Administration in The Hague, received the prestigious VENI grant for her research on risk regulation. 'We expect science to be the core basis of risk regulators’ decisions,' says Rimkutė, 'but at times threats to the regulators’ reputation…

The tenth Europa Lecture was delivered by Corinna Wissels, State Councillor at the Administrative Jurisdiction Division of the Dutch Council of State, deputy justice of the Dutch Trade and Industry Appeals Tribunal and member of the EU-UK Withdrawal Agreement arbitration panel.

Onlangs verscheen het boek ‘Afgrond zonder vangnet’ van Yra van Dijk, hoogleraar Moderne Nederlandse Literatuur. In haar boek analyseert ze verschillende thema's in het werk van Arnon Grunberg.

On 26 September 2023, Carlotta Rigotti was invited to give a talk on the regulatory impact of the AI Act on AI applications for recruitment and selection, during the AI Lund Fika-to-Fika Workshop on Regulating High Risk AI in the EU.

From 27 to 31 January, a workshop on the regulation of plastic pollution based on scientific evidence will be held at the Lorentz Center in Leiden.

Leiden University is ending the experiment with the Binding Study Advice in the second year of the bachelor's programme (BSA 2) with immediate effect. Under the terms of BSA 2, students were required to obtain 90 credits within two years, including their first-year diploma.

On Thursday 23 May, a jointly organized Lunch Seminar between the Leiden Research Lunch and the research program Interaction Between Legal Systems takes place. In this special seminar we have the honour of receiving Maria Weimer from the University of Amsterdam, who will present her new book on

Carlotta Rigotti, postdoctoral researcher at eLaw, has just published her new monograph, The Regulation of Sex Robots: Gender and Sexuality in the Era of Artificial Intelligence.

On the occasion of the new European and Coast Guard Regulation, adopted by the European Parliament in April, Mariana Gkliati has published a series of blogs, commenting on the changes brought by the new Regulation and their significance.

On Friday 2 December 2016, an international, multidisciplinary Research Conference on “Private law and market regulation – interaction, interference or inconsistency?” will be held in Leiden, hosted by the Coherent Private Law research group of Leiden Law School. The conference will be focused on two…

What legislative and regulatory questions arise when children, adolescents or elderly people use the Internet?

What is the influence of interactive lessons about study skills on the achievement of mentors' lesson goals and on self-regulation and other study skills of students in 4 havo, 4 vwo, and 5 vwo?

Rapid developments in DNA techniques allow researchers to find out more and more about human genetics. An international group of scientists has drawn up five ethical guidelines to ensure that this DNA research is better regulated. Leiden archaeologist Marie Soressi – one of the signatories - explains…

Investigation services and cyber criminals both make grateful use of the opportunities offered by digital technologies. Both groups' use of these services leads to breaches of privacy for citizens. The current legislation falls short in providing protective measures, is the conclusion reached by Professor…

How can we improve quality of life and study success in young, high-functioning adults with autism?

This book, written by two representatives of Leiden Law School, describes the framework of the European Insolvency Regulation (recast) (‘EIR Recast’), in force since June 2017.

Wordt het nog wat met de Arabische lente?

Lange tijd wisten we ons thuis in een wereld die we meenden te hebben. Het bestaan in deze vertrouwde wereld vormde onze existentie, die we op een eigenlijke wijze op ons namen. Thans is de wereld echter niet meer wat hij was, en zijn we ook zelf niet meer wie we waren. ‘De wereld is weg’, zo dichtte…

For the first time, it was shown in living cells how the bacterium E. coli regulates genes that help it survive in a new environment. Biochemist Fatema Zahra Rashid managed to do this using a technique she fine-tuned. Her research into changes in 3-dimensional chromosome structure offers clues for ways…

Cultural and individual differences

Following a highly successful first edition, we are delighted to announce the second Leiden eLaw Summer School on ‘Regulating AI in the EU Digital Market’ taking place from 23 to 27 June 2025, both in person in Leiden and online.

Workshop brings multidisciplinary experts together to debate proposed detection technologies and their impact on fundamental rights.

Workshop brings multidisciplinary experts together to produce interdisciplinary outcomes on the EU’s Proposal for a Regulation to prevent and combat child sexual abuse.

On Friday 2 June 2023, Vincent Delhomme, Assistant professor at the Europe Institute at Leiden Law School, successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled : ‘Regulating lifestyle risks in EU law: Promoting health in a diverse market’.

Elena Bondarouk, Assistant Professor at the Faculty Governance and Global Affairs, obtained her PhD on 27 August for her thesis on the local implementation of EU air quality policy. Her research has been included into the 'Europa decentraal' database, a Dutch governmental knowledge centre for queries…

All life on earth contains DNA, which is used to store biological information. Organisms compact their DNA in order for it to fit inside their cell(s).

On 24 May Maarten Aalbers, phd fellow at the Europa Institute, presented his research during the Irish Society of Comparative Law Conference, held between 23 and 25 May in Galway.

On 27 and 28 April, Simona Demková participated as a panelist at the conference 'A