westfaelischer friede in muenster gerard terborch

Law Blogs Maastricht

With Law Blogs Maastricht we aim to share our legal expertise, by making our research findings and contributions to topical debates available to a general readership of lawyers and law students, non-lawyers, the press and civil society.

Latest blogs

The Obligations of States in Respect of Climate Change – A Landmark Opinion of Urgency and Hope

  • Law

On 23 July 2025, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) handed down its much anticipated Advisory Opinion on the Obligations of States in respect of Climate Change. This case represents the highest example of climate litigation to date, with the Court joining numerous other international courts and tribunals which have examined states’ obligations with regard to their activities in the field of climate. This blog will review the Court’s key considerations in this extensive Advisory Opinion.

climate change protest

The way to Geneva and INC-5.2 after the IACtHR Advisory Opinion on the Climate Emergency and Human Rights

  • Law

How might the IACtHR Advisory Opinion on climate emergency and human rights reshape the Plastics Treaty negotiations?

IACtHR Advisory Opinion

A ‘Nice’ Turn for Ocean Governance: The Maastricht-São Paulo Delegation at the United Nations Ocean Conference

  • Law

From 8–13 June 2025, I had the opportunity to attend the Third United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC3) in Nice, France, as part of the Maastricht-São Paulo delegation. I participated as a scientific delegate (not representing the interests of any nation), affiliated as a Lecturer at Maastricht University Faculty of Law and a Researcher at CEDMAR (the Centre for Studies on the Law of the Seas at the University of São Paulo).

Group picture The Maastricht-São Paulo delegation

Trading Softly? The EU’s Quiet Shift Toward Clean Trade and Investment Partnerships

  • Law

For decades, multilateralism has been the guiding principle for regulating international trade relations between states. The European Union (EU) has long championed this approach, firmly believing that global cooperation - ideally through consensus among all countries - is the most effective way to govern state trade relations. As a fallback, the EU has also supported plurilateralism, where a critical mass of countries agrees on rules even if not everyone is on board.

Berlaymont gebouw Europese Commissie

Object- and Problem-Based Learning (OBL & PBL): A Fruitful Amalgamation for the Development of Legal Education

  • Law

Patrons at the Arthur W. Diamond Law Library at Columbia University (USA) can encounter a duplicate of an automobile wheel that relates to the 1916 court case heard by Judge Benjamin Cardozo in MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co. The wheel is an object that hangs on a wall on the fourth floor of the library. Instructors could take the wheel to the classroom when dissecting that landmark case and when dealing with the core problem around the case: product liability. The use of the wheel helps to materialise the elements that are addressed in the court reporter, in the casebook, and in the daily-life situation that motivated the decision. Similar educational experiences can take place when students are welcomed at a rare book room and encounter for the first time a medieval copy of the Corpus Iuris Civilis. Some experiences are indeed indelible and help visualise what dozens of prescribed readings and explanations by an instructor cannot make easily evident and memorable.

Book at the Hugo and the Law book exhibition