Latest blog articles
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A brief explainer about the ICJ case brought by South Africa against Israel
On 29 December, almost three months after the 7 October Hamas attacks on Israel and the ensuing Israeli military strikes on the Gaza Strip, which had by then resulted in the deaths of more than 21,000 people and more than...
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Breath in, breath out. Yes, the judgment of the (unlawfully composed) Polish Constitutional Tribunal is a serious challenge to the European Union’s legal system and to the principle of primacy of EU law. No, Poland has not activated the process of withdrawal from the EU under Article 50 TEU. Yes, EU...
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To any international lawyer, Hugo de Groot (10 April 1583 – 28 August 1645), usually referred to by his Latin name as Hugo Grotius, does not need any introduction. He is generally seen as the “father of public international law”, often together with Francisco De Vitoria (1483-1546) and Alberico...
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The corona virus is causing education to move from offline to online. In the Netherlands, the government and higher education institutions announced last Thursday (12 March 2020) that all in-person education has to be replaced by online education. Online means more reliance on technology. So here...
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Today, on Human Rights Day, the Peace Palace in The Hague will be the venue of the somewhat ironic spectacle of a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and global icon of human rights leading her country’s defence against allegations of genocide, the most serious violation of human rights possible.
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Over the years, I have heard various colleagues say they thought empirical legal research (ELR) has been on the rise. Some see this as a positive development, making law and legal research more evidence-based and diverse.
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There is wide agreement that the EU has not been effective in dealing with what I would define here as values’ awkwardness, cases in which EU Member States threaten the rule of law and the other common values of the European project. The obvious reference is in this respect to Hungary and Poland...
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After the recent adoption of controversial measures affecting the independence of the judiciary, the Commission has decided for the first time in history to activate Article 7(1) TEU against Poland. This groundbreaking decision opens a wholly new phase in the Polish crisis and has a broader impact...
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In July 1995, thousands of Muslim Bosniak men were deported from the enclave Srebrenica and subsequently killed by the Bosnian Serb army under the command of Ratko Mladić. The UN had declared Srebrenica a “safe area”, but the Dutchbat soldiers were not able to prevent the capturing and killing of...
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Case law analysis has the potential to disrupt the way legal scholars, practitioners and students search case law. But rest assured: the technology will not replace humans.