Latest blog articles


  • Dear Members of the UM Community,

    September is a month full of new beginnings. People in the university community take up new roles, start new research projects, or enroll in new classes. And while we might sometimes be nostalgic for the lazy days of summer, it’s also kind of nice to get to work.

  • Law students have to be global citizens and curious. Students have to be open-minded and eager to engage with otherness, going places. They have to start by visiting the library – it is free and takes readers to many places. Global citizens can benefit significantly from embarking in a study tour...

  • The scientific study of law–when consisting of the drafting of a research paper–undergoes a series of stages, running a cycle that matures and evolves. Four stages can be identified in that cycle, namely those related to the researching, writing, reasoning, and testing processes. Researchers can...

  • Dear Members of the UM Community,

    The end of the academic year is a busy time for all of us. Projects that we have been working on get finalized, everything needs to be prepared for the next academic year, and we reflect on the challenges of the past as well as the opportunities for the future.

  • Dear Maastricht University Community,

    Since May 1, I have had the honour of being the chair of our University Council. I have worked at University College Maastricht since 2007, teaching a range of courses in political philosophy. As Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences Education, I do research...

  • We Write to be Read, should always resonate in the mind of authors of research papers. The contents of Student-Edited Law Reviews (SL Reviews) is decided by students. These reviews offer a forum for outstanding research papers by law students. SL Reviews have strengths, while they face challenges...

  • Fairy tales, when understood as manuals of behaviour that are shared within the household, can serve as a means to study and understand the law at a specific time and space. This claim is not new. The Grimm Brothers, the renowned scholars Friedrich C. von Savigny (1779-1861) and John H. Wigmore...

  • Armed conflicts are not something new, sadly. They emerge in different parts of the globe, at different times, and due to different reasons. Three reflections follow on the role of legal education in the context of armed conflicts, inviting for paths for instructors and students to pursue peace...

  • Language plays a fundamental role as a channel for law. It can enable members of society to access justice. Conversely, an inadequate use of language may result in a dissociation of law from a specific society. Language is a fundamental means to convey messages, to know the law, and to shape the law...

  • Law is a social science that is subject to mutation. Scholars devote efforts to reconstruct the events and the activities of actors behind those changes. These efforts are many times materialized in comparative legal historical studies that trigger new trends and lines of research. These efforts...