Latest blog articles

Recently I was interviewed by Dutch news radio station BNR on the question whether there are legal or economic arguments to split up Big Tech companies like Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft. Because the interview was short, I could not give a truly balanced answer. Rather, from my Law &...

Language plays a fundamental role as a channel for law. It can enable members of society to access justice. Conversely, an inadequate use of language may result in a dissociation of law from a specific society. Language is a fundamental means to convey messages, to know the law, and to shape the law...

Law is a social science that is subject to mutation. Scholars devote efforts to reconstruct the events and the activities of actors behind those changes. These efforts are many times materialized in comparative legal historical studies that trigger new trends and lines of research. These efforts...

Monographs and law review articles are legal sources that can be better studied and understood by dissecting (Lat. dissecare) or “cutting” them into seven pieces. Looking carefully at those pieces–as when dissecting organisms in biological sciences–can help researchers to work with sources...

Recently there has been a strong wave of anti-China sentiments expressed in the media and within certain political circles, both in the United States and within the European Union. The Netherlands has been no exception to this.

Historical novels offer a place to outreach for other legal systems, providing laboratories to study and understand law and society. There is especial value in revisiting historical novels that depict law and society, especially in these days of Covid-19. Such is the case of the novel by Daniel...

There is value in reflecting on the impact that Covid-19 has on legal education. A first reflection relates to the fact that many state that Covid-19 invites for virtual teaching. Teaching is not virtual, since it is as real as it can get: students and instructors are real, experiences are real.

Resilience is a characteristic of codification, since codes tend to change according to time and space: they are far from being eternal or carved in stone. This is evident in Europe, when looking at the recent reforms to the Belgian Civil Code, for example in the area of property law. Resilience is...

The Law and Literature (L&L) movement gained momentum in Europe during the past decades, having had so far more exposure on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. L&L offers an open laboratory to create and test knowledge, and the teaching of law should benefit from the genius and creativity of...

Comparative law and multiculturalism can evolve together in the classroom at schools of law and result in a fruitful combination. Their interplay should be encouraged.