Latest blog articles

  • What is Private Law for?

    Albert Camus famously wrote that ‘life is the sum of all your choices.’ Private lawyers could not agree more. At the core of private law lies the idea that individuals are allowed to know better than the State.

    Pieter Bruegel_the_elder-_the_corn_harvest_august
  • Extraterritorial human rights obligations to protect refugees

    It took quite a while before the European countries realized and recognized that the influx from asylum-seekers via the Mediterranean Sea and Turkey into the European Union is not just a matter of controlling the outside borders of the Union, but also a humanitarian and human rights issue. Some...

    refugees_skala_sykamias_lesvos_greece
  • Member States´ financial contributions to the EU´s budget

    The EU´s budget is complicated. It is complex. And it is critically scrutinised by Member States. It has been the source of political debate and disagreement in the past decades and it still is today. Most recently, the issue was high on the agenda. In late 2014, the European Commission claimed supp...

    Member States´ financial contributions to the EU´s budget
  • How I stopped worrying about asylum seekers

    In a short memo, published on 22 March, the Dutch Liberal Party (VVD) expressed its view on how to handle the increasing number of asylum claims in the Netherlands, and more broadly in the EU, as well as the continuously tragic events concerning refugees that occur at the external borders of the EU...

    Trapped in despair: ‘The Great Escape’ in the Mediterranean