Latest blog articles

  • Pursuing a global context for ownership paradigms

    Legislative enactments and court decisions, together with social-historical events, provide the causal mechanisms that enable scholars to trace the evolution of ownership paradigms in different jurisdictions. In addition, shifts in ownership paradigms result from the circulation and flow of legal...

  • Myth: All lawyers are just profiteers

    Flashy guys who work on the Zuidas, live in luxury penthouses and tear around in the latest Teslas and Jaguars – and all at the expense of ‘the ordinary man’ who they laughingly charge exorbitant hourly rates. This image of lawyers appears to be fairly persistent. But it has very little to do with...

    onderbetaling sociale advocaten
  • Contextualizing Brexit

    The European Union (EU) faces challenges after the results of the United Kingdom (UK) European Union membership referendum that was held on June 23, 2016. Yet, Brexit is not the first challenge faced by the EU. Three points invite for reflection on Brexit and the future of the EU.

    Europa toekomst_MLR
  • A thank you letter (or hate mail) for Fred Rodell

    Fred Rodell, the once revered Yale Law School professor and the “bad boy of American legal academia” wrote that “[t]here are two things wrong with almost all legal writing. One is its style. The other is its content.” His harrowing words acutely capture my conflicting relationship with (legal)...

    Lions mouth
  • Populism as absolutism?

    It is not that listening to the electorate is wrong. It is not wrong either to build a campaign on perceived wishes of the electorate. Trying to win an electoral campaign either, is wrong.

    We_the_people_populism_Trump
  • EU, democracy and the rule of law in Poland

    What exactly are the legal instruments for the EU according the measures that have been introduced recently with regard to the constitutional court and in terms of the media law. This article is only available in Dutch.

    Polen
  • Trump, Clinton and the essence of a representative democracy

    Legitimacy in the political sense can be defined as an inquiry into the justification for the exercise of public authority. Or put differently: it is the reason why I, being part of society, should accept laws and regulations that bind me.

    Clinton-vs-Trump
  • The Democratic Ideal in Light of the Brexit

    The day after the “Brexit”-referendum, with a majority of 51.9% voting to leave the European Union, some speak of the success of democracy (“the people have spoken”). Already, there are calls for referenda in other countries to let the people speak there, too. This suggests that independently of our...

    PCE Europe1
  • The Dutch ‘Troonrede’ (King’s Speech) and the EU

    In today’s (15 september 2015) King’s speech the King said that the government will have as a point of departure for its presidency in 2016 of the Council of Ministers, a Europe which functions better and aims at essentials. Furthermore it will work towards an innovative Europe with a well...

    The Dutch ‘Troonrede’ (King’s Speech) and the EU
  • The first State of the Union of Juncker

    On September 9th 2015 the president of the Commission, Juncker, adressed for his first time the European Parliament in his State of the Union.  This year’s State of the Union was entitled: Time for Honesty, Unity and Solidarity. And the key concepts were: more Europe in the Union, and more Union in...

    The first State of the Union of Juncker