Latest blog articles

Asylum-seekers at the Greek island of Lesbos are in a vulnerable position. They claim basic human rights and hold the Europeans accountable. What can a human rights scholar do? His role is limited. When there is no political will, compassion and solidarity are gone.

The 70^th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 25^th anniversary of the Maastricht Centre for Human Rights are a landmark in the development of human rights and a source of inspiration for academic research on new global human rights issues.

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)} 

In response to the (alleged) use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime in the city of Douma, the United Kingdom, United States, and France carried out a number of missile strikes against several government facilities. These strikes clearly violate basic rules of international law.

The US government is breaching its obligation to promote universal respect for human rights by cutting back on its contribution to UNRWA for aid to Palestinian refugees. Other states have extraterritorial human rights obligations to compensate for this reduction.

Anyone who thinks that all asylum seekers who are granted a residence permit in the Netherlands stay here forever, is wrong. 

This contribution argues that the Trump decree to end US financial support for health organisations which provide information about sexual and reproductive health rights is contrary to human rights. The response by the Dutch government is more in line with human rights.

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 5^th part of the total...

The European Union and its member states have failed to comply with their extraterritorial human rights obligations to provide humanitarian aid and fulfil the subsistence rights of asylum-seekers.

The aim of this contribution is to assess what has been achieved since the adoption of the 1986 Limburg Principles on the Implementation of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights for the realisation of these human rights.