Latest blog articles

  • 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 Western Balkans enlargement perspective

    With the painful experiences of new Member States breaching the rule of law and democracy principles inside the EU and no tailor-made remedy to punish and enforce EU values, the Commission suggests in its Western Balkans strategy that future accession treaties could provide for such a mechanism to...

    Montenegro-blog West Balkan_Maastricht Law Blogs
  • European budget and the national constitutional state

    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...

    EU budget_EU begroting _blog
  • Myth: a religious marriage is merely symbolic

    When a marriage no longer works, you break up. Divorce proceedings are started and if all goes well, both partners can go on to live their own lives. At least, that is how it works with a civil marriage. What kind of problems do women encounter in a religious divorce?

    Religious marriage and Religious Divorce
  • Plant variety rights and patent: which way to go?

    Innovation is stimulated by a well designed regulatory framework as well as a balanced and effective Intellectual Property (IP) protection. IP protection gives the innovator an exclusive right on his innovation and allows a fair sustained return for his investment. In agricultural industry, plant...

    Plants and seeds - blog conference
  • The ECJ’s Uber judgment

    The recent ECJ’s judgment identifying Uber’s activities as transport services can be seen as a victory of the taxi sector against new business models. It affects the future of the platform economy in Europe by providing that certain composite services fall under the regulations governing the...

    OUTLINING_THE_FUTURE_OF_ONLINE_PLATFORMS_like_UBER.jpg
  • The risk in the personalisation trend of famous brands

    Nowadays, companies let consumers ‘play’ with their trademark: in the ‘Your Nutella – your way’ campaign the customer is invited to create his name label on a Nutella jar in the classic design of the Nutella logo. Nevertheless, there is an enhanced risk of trade mark dilution.

    Nutella branding marketing campaign
  • Conference ‘InnovAItion Law for Technology 4.0’

    How do we explain a decision made by a machine-learning algorithm? Do works of art created by artificial intelligence enjoy copyright protection? If intelligent games gather data of their users, who is liable if users are harmed by such games?

    artificial_intelligence_MLR