Latest blog articles

  • Asylum-seekers at the Greek island of Lesbos are in a vulnerable position. They claim basic human rights and hold the Europeans accountable. What can a human rights scholar do? His role is limited. When there is no political will, compassion and solidarity are gone.

  • The 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 25th anniversary of the Maastricht Centre for Human Rights are a landmark in the development of human rights and a source of inspiration for academic research on new global human rights issues.

  • Trump wall - blog Maastricht University

    Emergency for a wall?

    Is it legally possible for Trump to invoke an emergency in order to avoid Congress and obtain the necessary funds to build his wall? Or put differently: is it possible under US law to undo the refusal of Congress to appropriate the necessary funds?

  • In May 2018 the European Commission presented the plan of a new financial framework for 2021-2027. In which is stated that the European Commission, among other things, aims to make the subsidies which are given to the countries, conditional upon the level at which a member state complies with EU...

  • The US government is breaching its obligation to promote universal respect for human rights by cutting back on its contribution to UNRWA for aid to Palestinian refugees. Other states have extraterritorial human rights obligations to compensate for this reduction.

  • Yelling, offensive language, indecent sounds, and to a certain extent even behaviors are being protected as ‘speech’ or as ‘symbolic speech’ by Article 7 of the constitution. If we believe criminal justice is an appropriate instrument, an intervention is only allowed on the part of the national...