Latest blog articles

  • Making our curricula Michelin-worthy: skills taught by chefs

    Years ago, when I still had a tv, one of my guilty pleasures was watching Hell’s Kitchen. You know, that show in which a certain foul-mouthed Scottish master chef tries to teach a bunch of unskilled wannabees how to prepare a decent meal, predominantly by yelling at them all the time? Quite an...

    Presentation during symposium
  • Overcoming the pitfalls of anachronisms – and why this matters to all of us

    Every now and again, and especially when redesigning a curriculum, the question regarding the role and place of legal history in said curriculum is brought up. And rightly so. That is why the Open University Law School (UK) organized an online event on 15 December entitled Diversity, Dilemmas and...

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  • Logic of International Law

    On 14 and 15 November 2022, UM’s Faculty of Law held the “Logic of International Law Conference.” Henrique Marcos (UM & São Paulo Univ.) and Antonia Waltermann (UM) organised the conference under the auspices of the Globalization and Law Network (GLaw-Net) and the International Law Discussion Group...

  • Is ‘MOCCA’ in class 30 generic in China?

    What does the term ‘MOCCA’ evoke in your mind, a kind of coffee or a specific brand? This Kat randomly asked this question to her friends currently at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition Munich. Most of them regarded ‘MOCCA’ as a kind of coffee instead of a specific brand except...

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  • The 'goldfish phone booth' copyright case in Japan

    Nobuki Yamamoto, a Japanese contemporary artist, made an eye-catching work of ‘goldfish swimming in a phone booth’ (‘Work 1’) by December 2000 at the latest. In October 2011, a student organisation called ‘Goldfish Club’ at Kyoto University of Art and Design produced Work 2 and exhibited it for a...

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  • Constitutive and constituted sovereignty

    Sovereignty is invoked in many discussions today, from Brexit to Catalan independence, but it is rarely clear what, exactly, those who invoke sovereignty mean by it. For the purposes of understanding, analyzing, and understanding legal phenomena, however, a more precise understanding is necessary.

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  • Conventionally unconventional

    During the Anniversary year 2016-2017 the Maastricht law faculty celebrated its 35th birthday. And when you have your birthday, you hand out treats. A book, because that is tradition among faculties celebrating their birthday. A book which tells the story of the faculty and which contains interviews...

    Onconventionele juristen_foto FdR jubileumboek
  • Whose sovereignty is it, anyway? Catalonia vs Spain

    The wishes of the Spanish government and those of the Catalan people are diametrically opposed: 90% of voters in the referendum were for independence - but keep in mind also that only about half of the Catalan people voted.

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