The Role of Law in Libya’s National Reconciliation (RoLLNaR) was a research project that ran from 2017 to 2020. It identified and assessed the role of law – both actual and potential, enabling and constraining – with regard to major challenges of reconciliation in Libya. The project was led by Dr. Suliman…

Teaching is a vital part of CompaRe’s activities. Both in Leiden and abroad, our aim is to educate the minds that will redesign and drive forward the regional integration of tomorrow. We do so by offering multiple courses on comparative regional integration in Leiden, the creation of a MOOC on comparative…

Would you like to create an extra challenge for yourself? Leiden University gives you plenty of room to do so.

We would all like to live in a world in which individuals feel safe, conflicts are resolved peacefully and the interests of future generations are taken into consideration. At Leiden University legal scholars investigate to what extent public international law meets the needs of a globalised society.…

Having encountered a series of shocks that pose an existential threat to our livelihoods, our societies have become increasingly polarized.

Every month a member of the Institute for History tells about a book that inspired him or her. Afterwards, the pen is passed on to another colleague. This month dr. Meike de Goede tells about the book 'Between Tides' by Valentin Mudimbe. The novel, little known beyond the circles of Africanists and…

PhD Research Projects at LUCDH and Affiliated Faculties

As a student of the Master's in Comparative Criminal Justice you develop academic, theoretical and research insight in all aspects of crime control. Student actively work on current, concrete problems and are challenged to independently find solutions. Students not only learn about the organization…

In November, the Dutch will elect a new parliament. Not all eligible citizens will go out and vote, however. How can this be explained, and how big of a problem is it? International research into voter turnout can shed new light on this issue – and offer possible solutions.

Misha Plagis, assistant professor at the Grotius Centre of Public International Law wrote a paper together with Dr Nicole De Silva (Concordia University) entitled 'NGOs, international courts, and state backlash against human rights accountability: Evidence from NGO mobilization against Tanzania at the…

On 16 May 2024, EU Talks?!, a student-based initiative, was delighted to organise its first session with the following theme: ‘Rule of Law in the EU: Beyond Poland and Hungary'.

While the first votes of the American elections are being counted, PhD candidate Tessa van Buchem appeared as a guest on Radio 1. During the radio broadcast, she discussed the US Supreme Court: ‘The judges are seen as politicians in gowns.’

Jasmina Mačkić, assistant professor at the Europa Institute, delivered a lecture about topics related to discrimination during the Equal Rights Conference ‘Show Your True Colours’ in Leiden. The conference was organised by AEGEE-Leiden from the 24th up to an including the 27th of May 2018.

Two open letters are currently circulating among civil servants in the Netherlands calling for the Dutch government to take a different stance towards Israel. Wim Voermans, Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law in Leiden, says in a national radio broadcast that this is an unusual and unique…

Dr Mark Leiser, Assistant Professor in Law and Digital Technologies at eLaw, is part of a successful €1.5 million bid for a research grant from the acclaimed Volkswagen Institute on “Reclaiming individual autonomy and democratic discourse online: How to rebalance human and algorithmic decision makin…

Willemijn Aerdts, lecturer at ISGA, discussed the Russian interference in the domestic affairs of Western countries on Dutch radio BNR.

The annual meeting of the European Group of Public Law (EGPL) took place on 13 and 14 September 2024 in Legrena, Greece.

On 19 April, several mosque organisations criticized the way in which the Dutch intelligence service wrote the annual report about increasing 'anti-democratic' tendencies in after-school lessons in Islam and Arabic. Constant Hijzen, assistant professor of Intelligence Studies at the Institute of Security…

On 18 July, Olga Ceran held a presentation titled ‘Family law in a united Europe: Child abduction and child relocation’ at a summer school on 'European integration at the Franco-Spanish border: A cross-border perspective' which took place at the Cité des Arts in Bayonne (France).

The Student Cabinet, a shadow cabinet with students from the Dutch universities, has presented its first ‘coalition agreement’. As Minister for New Democracy, Leiden student Zeineb Romdhane says inclusion should form ‘the basis of our democracy’.

The Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Centre for BOLD Cities uses multidisciplinary big data research to help find solutions for urban problems. ‘BOLD’ stands for ‘Big, Open and Linked Data’. Data science is one of the Centre’s main disciplines.

How can party bans be justified? Which parties were banned in post-war Europe – and why? Do militant democracy instruments work? Is an international militant democracy concept in the making?

Simone van der Hof has been awarded funding for a Marie Curie Initial Training (PhD) Network for NETHATE. NETHATE will bring together an interdisciplinary team of world-leading researchers to tackle an ambitious & relevant research project on the nature of hate. The NETHATE Consortium, an international…

Are you interested in meeting Bede Sheppard, Human Rights Watch’s Deputy Director of the Children’s Rights Department? Bede will be at LUC on Thursday the 26th of May for the #WatchOurSchools event in the auditorium, and we are giving our students the chance to meet with him before. In order to win…

Moldavia is going through a governmental crisis. Antoaneta Dimitrova was asked to clarify the events on the Dutch radio programme ‘Bureau Buitenland’. She commented on the current political relations but also issued a warning: ‘Panic is rising, there is a real danger of conflict in the country.’

Almost two weeks after the general elections in the Netherlands, negotiations between the leaders of the four parties who were expected to form a new coalition government are still not going smoothly. Ronald Plasterk, appointed as ‘scout’ to explore possible alliances, has said he will need one more…

From 14 to 15 September 2023, Simona Demkova, AI researcher at the Europa Institute, participated in the INDIGO Project Final Conference, where she provided valuable perspectives on the implications of AI for European public law.

Dr. Henk Schulte Nordholt, working at KITLV and LIAS, has been appointed extraordinary professor of Indonesian history for a five-year period.

Erik van der Zanden and Donna de Weijer, both MA African Studies students, traveled all the way to Uganda’s capital Kampala in order to start their internship. They share their adventures at The Leidener, a blog that is run by international students of Leiden University.

The conflict between the Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán and his party Fidesz, on the one hand, the other parties within the European People's Party (EPP), on the other, illustrates the complex functioning of European democracy. Michiel Luining, lecturer at the Institute of Public Administration at Leiden…

On Monday 14 December the yearly research colloquium of the research programme ‘Effective Protection of Fundamental Rights in a Pluralist World’ (EPFR) took place.

Polls conducted by I&O research point to a political landslide. What's in store for the Netherlands? The polls show that the new party of MP Pieter Omtzigt is well-positioned for the upcoming election, with an expected 31 seats, but only 3 for the Christian Democratic Alliance (CDA) party. It is obvious…

‘Big Tech heeft de democratische staat op feodale wijze aan zich onderworpen’, schrijft universitair docent Reijer Passchier in zijn nieuw verschenen boek De vloek van Big Tech. In NRC waarschuwt de docent voor de groeiende macht van techgiganten.

'Een nieuw commentaar op de Grondwet' is the title of a book published this week. The book uses 35 essays to describe the importance of the Constitution to the Dutch democratic rule of law.

On 6 September 2018 Jacqueline Vel of the Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance and Society organised a master class on ‘Access to Justice’ at the invitation of the Wira Wacana Christian University in Waingapu, Sumba, Indonesia.

The Humanities Faculty Teaching Award has been won by Olja Karmanova. The Russian lecturer was presented with the award during the opening of the faculty year.

Reijer Passchier, universitair docent Staatrecht in Leiden en hoogleraar Digitalisering en de democratische rechtsstaat aan de Open Universiteit, pleit voor de ontwikkeling van europese techbedrijven, waarbij europa zijn soevereiniteit weet te behouden. Hij waarschuwt vooral niet het ‘destructieve gigantisme-model…

After the May elections a new University Council has now taken seat. The university democracy is the result of the long-lived national student protests in 1969. Students from Leiden joined the protests for greater representation, although their actions were less revolutionary than at other universities.…

Almost all the members of the Dutch House of Representatives, ministers and government officials are university educated. At the same time, the large majority of the electorate have a lower level of education, or even no education. How much of a problem is that? Two new books warn about this gap in…

These days we do not just have wars and civil wars – more of a global civil war, says Bashir Azizi, who received a PhD in April 2020 for his thesis on global citizenship. The second edition of his thesis was recently published.

The relationship between academia and democracy is a complicated one. Should policy makers listen to scientists or to citizens? That is the dilemma Valérie Pattyn and Johan Christensen will discuss with a panel of experts during the academic conference EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF).

The Municipality of The Hague called on researchers to come up with a proposal for an innovative research project on problems big cities face such as energy transition. Four of the five projects that have been granted funding come from researchers from Leiden University.

Jan de Vetten brengt zijn promotieonderzoek ook uit in boekvorm. ‘In de ban van goed en fout’ beschrijft voor het eerst - op basis van archiefonderzoek en interviews - op samenhangende wijze de bestrijding van de CP en CD, en ook de reactie daarop van die partijen. Waarom werden ze zo fel werden bestreden?…

Hande Taner (on the left), graduated from Leiden University College (Liberal Arts and Sciences, World Politics) now pursuing a Master’s in European Affairs at SciencesPo Paris and London School of Economics. On Monday 22 October 2018 at the OSCE/ODIHR conference on combatting discrimination, she…

On 6 April the Netherlands will vote on far-reaching cooperation with Ukraine. Referenda are exceptional in Dutch political history, according to Professor of Electoral Research Joop van Holsteijn.

Terrorism expert Bart Schuurman has been appointed professor. As a researcher and lecturer at ISGA, he has witnessed the terrorist threat evolve and broaden. 'How can we explain these shifts and protect our society against them? That is what I want to focus on more,' he says.

Governance of the internet is chaotic, says Professor Jan Aart Scholte. Can we learn from this relatively new form of governance?

The scaling up of municipalities means that local authorities are too often losing sight of citizens. This warning was given by Job Cohen on 30 November on his departure from Leiden University as Thorbecke professor. ‘The Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations has got some work to do.'

‘Critical thinking’ is an expression all academics have heard of: it’s the first learning objective in the Leiden Vision on Teaching and Learning. It’s both a historical topic with roots that reach back a long way and a topical problem too. The question on everyone’s lips is whether critical thinking…

Political scientist Leila Demarest tells about her research to Nigeria’s National Assembly. How do politicians cooperate and how are public resources distributed among the different regions?