Latest blog articles
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Last September, the European Commission adopted a proposal for a Directive on European cross-border associations (COM(2023) 516 final). “The proposal aims to improve … the conditions for establishing and operating European cross-border associations (ECBAs)”. According to the Commission, the current...
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Not out of possibility, but out of necessity
The last couple of weeks of 2021 were dominated by the cross-border nature of the COVID-19 crisis, and the fight against it. While the Netherlands went into the holiday season under a lockdown, complete closures were largely absent in Germany and...
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Written by Yu Yan & Michael Faure.
The Chinese word “economy” is originated from a famous idiom called “经世济民” (jing shi ji min), which suggests that a prosperous society is not only about economic success but also about the financial well-being of the general population. Microinsurance (the...
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During the corona crisis, national measures in the three countries on the Limburg borders are not coordinated equally well. As a result, there is currently a situation in the border region where certain border entrepreneurs fall between the cracks, such as in the Dutch newspaper NRC on April 2nd ("E...
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During the Easter weekend there was a lack of clarity about what the rules are at the German-Dutch border. What is actually still allowed when it comes to travelling from the Netherlands to Germany and vice versa? Both the government in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and in the Netherlands have...
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Today in times of pandemic hospitals face a crisis of scarce resources. In many places this has already led to measures of triage where critical medical care is rationed to those who are most likely to benefit from it. In other places, it is clear that such measures will soon need to be taken.
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Cross-border non-coordination
Yesterday I was in Maastricht at the Belgian border which is no more than 1 km behind my house. I wanted to see it with my own eyes: the border was closed. The Belgian government has put up barriers to prevent us from entering their country. For five years we at ITEM... -
I wrote my PhD towards the last days of the debate over “social rights”. This debate harkens back to the fifties, when the International Covenant on Social and Cultural Rights was being negotiated. Some claimed that social rights could never be true rights. Others claimed that without social rights...
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In this entry I want to mention four considerations that suggest that human rights lawyers should be cautious in embracing basic income as a replacement for human rights. These reflections should be seen as merely exploratory. The basic income in full has never been put in practice, and consequently...
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To speak of economic justice today is to speak of the basic income. A basic income can be defined as an unconditional cash payment to all persons who form part of a political community. As automation increases, there is fear that labor will be replaced by “robots”. The basic income seems to be a...