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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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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Breath in, breath out. Yes, the judgment of the (unlawfully composed) Polish Constitutional Tribunal is a serious challenge to the European Union’s legal system and to the principle of primacy of EU law. No, Poland has not activated the process of withdrawal from the EU under Article 50 TEU. Yes, EU...
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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.
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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 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 25th 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.
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There is wide agreement that the EU has not been effective in dealing with what I would define here as values’ awkwardness, cases in which EU Member States threaten the rule of law and the other common values of the European project. The obvious reference is in this respect to Hungary and Poland...
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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.
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After the recent adoption of controversial measures affecting the independence of the judiciary, the Commission has decided for the first time in history to activate Article 7(1) TEU against Poland. This groundbreaking decision opens a wholly new phase in the Polish crisis and has a broader impact...
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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.