Latest blog articles

  • law_van gend en loos case

    Van Gend en Loos case

    While the story of the company is a little history of European integration in itself, it was the decision of the European Court of Justice in the case Van Gend & Loos v Nederlandse Administratie der Belastingen (1963) that gave Van Gend & Loos a place in European Union law. The case itself was...

  • Het is wellicht wat eigenaardig reflecties over de rol van de EU op het terrein van de volksgezondheid, en de huidige corona-crisis in het bijzonder, te beginnen in 1952, maar toch doe ik het. In december van dat jaar organiseerde de Franse regering een conferentie in Parijs waaraan...

  • 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 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.

  • Why would the EU at all consider unilaterally offering a new status to British (or other former EU) citizens without there being any reciprocal status or legal protection for EU citizens living in the UK (or any other exiting Member State)?

  • The entire structure of Article 50 TEU implies that it is up to a Member State to withdraw from the Union without there being any limitation imposed by EU law as to the reasons for the withdrawal, how this decision is taken or the extent to which that Member State takes into consideration the...

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.