Latest blog articles
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Only a short drive from Maastricht, border stones still mark the borders of Neutral Moresnet, a small condominium that was the result of a very peculiar round of border negotiations and for over a hundred years was a tax haven, a gambling paradise and a would-be Esperanto state.
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Throughout the EU, the rights of asylum seekers come under pressure. Overdue policy changes remain stuck in negotiations because of lacking political will. It is up to the European Commission to step up and protect the fundamental rights of asylum seekers.
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A male senior manager enthusiastically slapping a female colleague’s buttocks – is that acceptable? And what if a female staff member did this to her female supervisor? Or a manager who puts his arm around a colleague who is having a hard time? What is crossing the line? Who decides?
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The corona virus is causing education to move from offline to online. In the Netherlands, the government and higher education institutions announced last Thursday (12 March 2020) that all in-person education has to be replaced by online education. Online means more reliance on technology. So here...
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Over the years, I have heard various colleagues say they thought empirical legal research (ELR) has been on the rise. Some see this as a positive development, making law and legal research more evidence-based and diverse.
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This post will focus on the Article 34(1) ICJ Statute requirement that ‘[o]nly states may be parties in cases before the Court’.
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On 10 October 2017, Catalonia issued and then immediately suspended its declaration of independence, and urged Spain to negotiate. Spain does not want to negotiate.
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In July 1995, thousands of Muslim Bosniak men were deported from the enclave Srebrenica and subsequently killed by the Bosnian Serb army under the command of Ratko Mladić. The UN had declared Srebrenica a “safe area”, but the Dutchbat soldiers were not able to prevent the capturing and killing of...
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From illegal but legitimate to legal because it is legitimate? This post argues that, analogous to the concept of defences in municipal legal systems, international law on the use of force should adopt a systematic distinction between justifications and excuses.