Latest blog articles
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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...
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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...
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About a year ago, this blog published my contribution “Let us not forget about EU fundamental rights,” which addressed the situation at the EU’s external borders. At the time, the decision of the ECtHR in the case of N.D and N.T v. Spain, was heavily criticised for failing to protect the right to...
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During my lunch break or in the evening, it is a pleasure to take a walk and visit the border crossing, because I want to know how our southern neighbours have cordoned off the border. The Dutch-Belgian border is about 300 meters away from me. Only recently I realised that my father once guarded...
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Human rights violations continue to be a major issue at the EU’s external borders and pushbacks have been reported in several EU Member States. Most recently, the spotlight has been on Spain’s long-standing practice of pushbacks at the border of Melilla, as the ECtHR handed down its long-awaited...
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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...
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This blog is only available in Dutch.
Als je woont of werkt in een grensregio zijn daar zowel voor- als nadelen aan verbonden. Laat ik met het belangrijkste nadeel beginnen: Voor landelijke gebeurtenissen ben je een eind weg van daar waar het meest gebeurt. Dat zijn de grote Randsteden: als je pech...
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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...
