Latest blog articles
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Why it is so challenging for Dutch authorities to effectively implement the government policy against serious drug related organized crime? Recently, my colleagues and I from Maastricht University and Erasmus University Rotterdam published an article in the Dutch Tijdschrift over Cultuur en...
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In this piece, I will use two memes to begin to unpack what I think is the common denominator of contemporary populist rhetoric. I will explain that the real substance of this rhetoric is the creation of a false moral equivalence, revealing a nihilism. Finally, I will suggest how this false moral...
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The debate on the implications of Dutch colonial rule in Indonesia recently intensified after a report concluded that the Dutch forces had used extreme violence. Reactions to the report reveal that the issue remains controversial and challenging to discuss. The findings in the report do however...
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It is always exciting to await a final decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union. The judgement in C-619/18, Art. 258 TFEU infringement case against Republic of Poland, is even more of a case in point, given its relevance for the European Union values and the mechanisms designed to hold...
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25 years after the Genocide Against the Tutsi, the denial of this genocide still poses a serious challenge to prevention and reconciliation. How to address this problem was one of the central questions discussed during a recent commemorative conference in the Peace Palace.
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The Polish turn away from democracy, named by Sadurski as anti-constitutional populist backsliding, has taken on a new dramatic and bold turn involving the active use of the available tools by the judges to question and address the rule of law problems in Poland. The judges seem to be fighting back...
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The approach of drugs related problems in Maastricht, with the help of a specially equipped project Frontière, based on the decrease of visible nuisance in the city over the recent years, has so far been successful. (This blog is only available in Dutch)
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Instead of protecting the victims of Burundi, the current government shields those who are responsible. The problem with such impunity is that it de facto “legalizes” violence as no accountability is created.
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Roland Moerland spoke at Docfest about the bystander effect, empathy and agency, self-sacrifice and other remarkable features of the documentary City of Ghosts.
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Edwin Kruisbergen obtained his doctorate on monday 9-01-17 at the VU, with a thesis entitled Combating Organised Crime; a study on undercover policing and the follow-the-money strategy. According to confiscation of illegally obtained assets Kruisbergen concluded that not even a 5th part of the total...