Leaders of the ASEAN Member States, Australia, China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and New Zealand have signed the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Agreement.

This project focuses on urban commercial space in Roman Italy and deals with the impact of economic growth on urban communities in the late Republic and the Imperial period (200 BCE – 300 CE).

Jan Vleggeert is a tax specialist with an independent and critical voice in the debate on tax avoidance by multinationals. His appointment commenced on 1 October 2019.

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).

Yvonne Erkens, Associate Professor Labour Law, was a guest lecturer at the FHR Institute for Higher Education in Paramaribo, Suriname, from 4 to 11 November.

Three directors of PostNL have been arrested in Belgium, suspected of human trafficking among other things. Abuses also exist in the Dutch parcel delivery sector. Why does the Netherlands act less firmly?

On Tuesday 22 January 2019, Beryl ter Haar participated in a comparative law lecture featuring labour law cases of the constitutional court of South Africa at the Kutafin State Law University Moscow, Russia. Topics discussed included short term employment contracts, the right to strike and the right…

This week the European Court of Justice ruled that companies in the European Union as of now have to register the amount of hours their employees work. Member States will be responsible for ensuring employers establish such registration systems.

Barend Barentsen, Professor of Labour Law, recently spoke at a meeting of experts in Amsterdam on the future of the Dutch incapacity benefit system.

Do sustainability values play a role in motivating people to act for biodiversity in successful projects and in successful leadership action? And how could these values be incorporated in current economic valuation methods?

The World of the Fullo takes a detailed look at the fullers, craftsmen who dealt with high-quality garments, of Roman Italy. Analyzing the social and economic worlds in which the fullers lived and worked, it tells the story of their economic circumstances, the way they organized their workshops, the…

On invitation by prof. Nikita Lyutov (Kutafin State Law University Moscow), Beryl ter Haar participated in a kick-off meeting on a comparative research paper on the free movement of workers within the EU and the Eurasian Economic Union held by Kutafin State Law University on the 24th of January 2019…

The contributions in this volume seek to highlight the atypical features of the Hanse, and place them in a wider context of common roots, influences and parallel developments.

In an attempt to retain employees and tackle shortages in the labour market, some employers are now prepared to go further in offering attractive employment benefits. Dutch news programme 'Nieuwsuur' has discovered that large international companies, like Uber, McKinsey, and Salesforce, are prepared…

Ms. Kollmann, a home care worker in the Netherlands, is demanding pension and unemployment benefits from the Dutch Employee Insurance Agency (UWV). An exception in the law means that home carers working for private individuals are not automatically entitled to benefits under social security schemes.

On 13 and Friday 14 July 2017 the International Congress took place in Porto, Portugal. The conference was bilangual with simultaneous translations between English and Portuguese/Spanish. In total there were about 350 participants from 23 different countries, however, most of the participants came from…

Ralph Keuning, the former director of Museum de Fundatie, a museum for the visual arts in Zwolle, stepped down in 2022 following complaints about authoritarian leadership. On top of that, an independent investigation has shown that he received almost €200,000 from the struggling museum after his departure.…

Uit onderzoek van het NRC blijkt dat het salaris van oud-directielid Van Hove, van het inmiddels wegens grensoverschrijdend gedrag op de werkvloer in opspraak geraakte theatergezelschap ITA, bij menigeen de wenkbrauwen doet fronsen. Gerrard Boot, hoogleraar arbeidsrecht, spreekt zich over deze salariskwestie…

Migrants are expensive. Or are they? Professor Olaf van Vliet collaborated on a big research project from Leiden University to map the costs of migration. During the last episode of this season of the podcast Open Geesten (Open Minds), he talks about the initial results. Do migrants really put a lot…

Professor Paul van der Heijden (International Labour Law) has been awarded a grant of 50,000 euros by the city council of The Hague to start building a Business & Human Rights database.

The Dutch temporary bridging measure for self-employed professionals (known as Tozo) was set up to help Dutch self-employed professionals who are experiencing financial difficulties due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Last week, the ombudsman announced an investigation into the scheme for the self-employed.…

Scientists often need to make sense of complex systems without knowing the important parameters or even without access to all the information. A collaboration of network theorists, including Diego Garlaschelli (IMT Lucca/Leiden), has now published a review article in the inaugural issue of Nature Reviews…

On 9 and 10 November, the Institute of International and European Law of the University of Göttingen and the Minerva Center for Human Rights of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, organized a conference called ‘Unpacking Economic and Social Rights: International and Comparative Dimensions’.

Social Policy is increasingly incorporated as a subject of European law. The Social Dialogue with labour and management organisations leads to agreements that can be transformed into Directives of the Council

Professor Paul van der Heijden (international labour law Leiden University) has been appointed the honorary Marcel Storme chair at the University of Ghent. The Marcel Storme chair is a rotating professorship at the law faculty of the University of Ghent which according to the regulations is solely…

Donderdag 7 februari is prof. mr. dr. P.F. van der Heijden benoemd tot Officier in de Orde van Oranje-Nassau. Hij kreeg de koninklijke onderscheiding uit handen van minister Koolmees van Sociale Zaken.

Self-employed workers’ hours have significantly decreased during the coronavirus crisis. Their average hours worked decreased most at the start of the crisis, by more than five hours per week. And it was difficult to return to their pre-crisis hours in the quarters that followed. This is the conclusion…

Opportunities and challenges of digitalisation, the platform economy, and flexibilisation of European labour markets.

The 21 universities of the League of European Research Universities have an enormous economic impact: more than 900,000 jobs and 71.2 billion euros in 2014. Each job at a member university results in 6 jobs elsewhere. Leiden University is a member of the League.

How can society let go of its obsession with economic growth and focus on goals as wellbeing, inclusion and sustainability? This is one of the core questions which a new 3 million euro European project will tackle the upcoming four years. Leiden University researcher Rutger Hoekstra is project coordinator…

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.

The relationship between LGBT inclusion and economic development: Macro-level evidence

For many years, human rights have mostly been a theme where states constituted the most important actors. Influenced by globalisation and the worldwide integration of the economy, multinational corporations have grown to feel more responsible for compliance to human rights.

Following the announcement of the second economic aid package by Dutch Ministers Eric Wiebes, Wopke Hoekstra and Wouter Koolmees, Arco Timmermans discussed the content of the government's second economic package on the Dutch radio programme BNR Lobbypanel.

On 20 October 2021 the plenary of the European Economic and Social Committee adopted its opinion on the proposed EU strategy for the Schengen area.

On Friday 24 March, Prof. Amanda Perry-Kessaris (Kent Law School) will deliver the monthly Leiden Socio-Legal Lecture.

Een internationaal consortium onder leiding van Olaf van Vliet heeft een Horizon Europe subsidie van 3,4 miljoen euro gewonnen. In het onderzoek staat centraal hoe wereldwijde sociale veranderingen zoals migratie, digitalisering en de klimaattransitie de arbeidsmarkt beïnvloeden en wat daar de gevolgen…

This PhD research sets out to unravel and explain the socio-structural and cultural impacts of oil-industrialization on the local Bakhtiari community in general and the industrial laborers it provided in specific.

From 25-27 June 2017 the 3rd Conference of the Labour Law Research Network took place in Toronto, Canada. Beryl ter Haar participated in two panels. The first panel dealt with strike law from a comparative perspective between South Africa, Russia, The Netherlands, and Europe. The contribution of Beryl…

This subproject of 'From Homo Economicus to Political Animal' will be on ancient analogues for modern-day “ersatz economics”, the economics of the “man in the street”.

Decent work involves opportunities for work that delivers a fair income, care for occupational health and safety, freedom for people to organize and equality of opportunity and treatment for all women and men. The Labour Law department at Leiden University conducts research and provides education on…

Gerrie Lodder has published an article in the Dutch legal periodical Nederlands Juristenblad on the exploitation of labour migrants from the perspective of human rights.

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.

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…

EuDEco (Modelling the European Data Economy) is a Coordination & Support Action (CSA) receiving funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme.

Paul van der Heijden, professor emeritus International Labour Law, was recently appointed by the British Minister for Trade as an independent arbitrator under the dispute settlement provisions of the United Kingdom’s Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Japan.

In store is now the Research Handbook on Labour, Business and Human Rights Law edited by prof. Janice Bellace of the University of Pennsylvania and ass. prof. Beryl ter Haar of Leiden University. The book is publisehd in Edward Elgars series on Human Rights.

Due to an exception in the law, domestic workers employed by private persons cannot automatially benefit from social security schemes. Home help Carol Kollmann did not agree with this and took her case to court.

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,…