Latest blog articles

From 30 November to 12 December 2023, the COP28 climate summit took place in Dubai. It is special because all parties agreed to phase out fossil fuel use, triple global renewable energy generation capacity by 2030 and double energy efficiency. This annual UN climate conference is the world’s largest...

What does the term ‘MOCCA’ evoke in your mind, a kind of coffee or a specific brand? This Kat randomly asked this question to her friends currently at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition Munich. Most of them regarded ‘MOCCA’ as a kind of coffee instead of a specific brand except...

Nobuki Yamamoto, a Japanese contemporary artist, made an eye-catching work of ‘goldfish swimming in a phone booth’ (‘Work 1’) by December 2000 at the latest. In October 2011, a student organisation called ‘Goldfish Club’ at Kyoto University of Art and Design produced Work 2 and exhibited it for a...

How do we guarantee access to COVID-19 vaccines and therapies, and secure health-related human rights for all? We’ve heard a string of promises in the race for new vaccines and therapies.

It’s been almost a month since the COVID-19 pandemic has drastically changed the way we live and work. Now that we are more used to, in a manner of speaking, the extraordinary measures to curtail the rampant spread of the virus, it’s time to seriously consider, and openly discuss, this crisis’...

Recently, Chanel Co., Ltd. lost a trade mark infringement case regarding its ‘Double C’ logo in China. The full text of the decision can be visited via here (Google translatable). The case has drawn wide attention and, mostly, negative comments. Does this seemingly-counterintuitive loss indeed, well...

This blog is currently only available in Dutch.

Op 22 mei 2019 verscheen de ‘Atlas voor gemeenten 2019’. De 50 grootste gemeenten van Nederland worden jaarlijks met elkaar vergeleken. Dat kunnen verschillende beleidsterreinen zijn waar lokale, regionale en centrale overheden zich mee bezighouden...

Globally the majority of health-related R&D is invested in medicines with substantial guaranteed returns, yet what is missing is extensive R&D targeted at diseases overwhelmingly prevalent in developing countries. This threatens long-term availability of medicines and treatment options for these...

On 8 September 2015 State Secretary for Justice and Security Klaas Dijkhoff announced that from now on only refugees who have applied for asylum in a safe place outside the EU would be accepted in the Netherlands. The government wants to put an end to asylum-seekers placing their fate in the hands...