Latest blog articles

  • Must universality of human rights give in to cultural pluralism?

    Over the past decades, universality as the cornerstone of human rights has been constantly challenged by non-western societies. Legitimacy and western political hegemony intent are the underlying grounds. In the battle between universality and cultural relativism, which one should prevail?

    Universality blog Human rights
  • Marking two Human Rights anniversaries

    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.

    Human rights blog MCfHR hands on
  • Let’s not talk about universality

    Seventy years to the day have passed since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted. International human rights have since gained ground in theory, discourse, and practice. In this short post, I argue that for human rights to regain some of their traction, we should take care not to use...

    human-rights blog Lea Raible_MLR
  • The right to a Republic of Cyprus nationality for Turkish Cypriots

    As you may or may not know, Cyprus is a divided island. While the south of the island is governed by the internationally recognized Republic of Cyprus, the north is governed by the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus", an internationally unrecognized state.

    Searching for nationality_Cyprus citizenship application
  • Early childhood and structural prevention of child maltreatment

    The subject of rights status of children is still an international legal stipulation without substantive national implementation. Statistics on violence against children remain incredibly high all over the world, including in high-income states. There exists not only a huge gap between theory and...

    Child maltreatment blog by Jan Willems
  • Four concerns on the basic income (from a human rights perspective)

    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...

    blog on basic income law blogs maastricht
  • The basic income and human rights

    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...

    Basic income blog - Faculty of Law Maastricht
  • The US imposing hardship on Palestinian refugees

    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.

    Palestine-gaza