Latest blog articles
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Every now and again, and especially when redesigning a curriculum, the question regarding the role and place of legal history in said curriculum is brought up. And rightly so. That is why the Open University Law School (UK) organized an online event on 15 December entitled Diversity, Dilemmas and...
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In Part I we explained the outstanding profile of the Facebook Whistleblower Frances Haugen. We now discuss the factors showing whether Haugen’s whistleblowing experience is an outlier or whether it is indicative of what we will be seeing in other whistleblower cases in the future.
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“I don’t hate Facebook. I love Facebook. I want to save it”, wrote Frances Haugen as she resigned from Facebook and revealed tens of thousands of documents alleging Facebook has time and again prioritized profit over people.
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There has been substantial political debate over the last decade about the role of experts in policymaking. But how are these trends likely to develop in future? Drawing on a new edited volume, Vigjilenca Abazi, Johan Adriaensen and Thomas Christiansen set out four distinct scenarios concerning the...
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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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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...
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During the Anniversary year 2016-2017 the Maastricht law faculty celebrated its 35th birthday. And when you have your birthday, you hand out treats. A book, because that is tradition among faculties celebrating their birthday. A book which tells the story of the faculty and which contains interviews...
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Trevor Burrus claims that health care cannot be a fundamental right. He is not alone in saying this, but the way he says it is noteworthy. His article is not original (nor does it claim to be), but it represents an admirably clear retelling of an old story: Positive rights cannot be rights, this is...