Collaborative Innovative Projects: Four New Projects Funded

YOUNGIS is the first network of Dutch young academics and practitioners specialising in criminal law. It is part of the Dutch Gezelschap voor Internationaal Strafrecht of the Association International de Droit Pénal. The AIDP is the biggest and the oldest association of criminal law scholars in the world.

The core activity of YOUNGIS is collaboration. The board of the network consists of researchers from Utrecht University and Maastricht University. Moreover, current YOUNGIS members come from more than 8 different Dutch law faculties.

YOUNGIS will pursue two main lines of activities. First, it will act as a networking hub for early-career scholars and practitioners, facilitating workshops, and the forming consortia for grant applications. Second, it will organise international events hosted at Dutch universities and research institutes, thereby placing the Netherlands at the forefront of research in criminal justice at international level.

The first symposium organised by YOUNGIS, “Criminal Law in the Age of Transitions: Between Sacred Cows and Core Values of Criminal Justice Systems”, will take place at Utrecht University in April 2026. By providing the opportunity to publish the results of their research in an open access journal, the symposium will directly support young researchers’ scholarly impact and increase their visibility.

By giving support to the first network of its kind in the Netherlands, the project will not only strengthen ongoing relationships, but it will also create avenues for new collaborations. This will define new approaches to research in criminal law, driven by the ideas of the newest generations of researchers and practitioners.

Finally, the network aims to approach research in criminal law in a broad and cross-sectional manner. Interaction with other sciences, for example forensics sciences, criminology, and other social sciences, is an integral part of the group’s work.

Suspects are often intoxicated during a crime or when interrogated, possibly affecting their decision-making throughout the investigative process—such as whether to waive their rights, to deny, remain silent or confess. The purpose of the project is to draft an ecologically valid virtual reality (VR) simulation in which intoxicated participants commit a simulated crime and make live decisions in a legal setting.

Across two studies, researchers will assess how intoxicated suspects make decisions on their rights and strategies throughout the custodial process. One study will be a field study in which self-intoxicated participants (alcohol) will take part. This study will be conducted in a bar or at a festival. The second study is a lab experiment to examine effects of acute cannabis intoxication on suspect decision-making.

The project is innovative in its application of VR technology to study the legal decision-making process of suspects under intoxication. VR allows to study how intoxication impacts suspect behaviour in a way that traditional methods —such as case vignettes—cannot replicate. The VR technology can be used for both research as well as training purposes.

This project brings together two teams: Prof. Dr. Miet Vanderhallen from the Faculty of Law, specialising in suspect interviewing and legal decision-making, and Dr. Lilian Kloft-Heller from the Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience (FPN), specialising in psychopharmacology and forensic psychology. The project team will also collaborate with the FPN Instrumentation Engineering team to develop the virtual reality simulation.

The project ‘Constitutionalism and Democracy: Tensions and Transformations’ consists in a workshop, which will take place in Maastricht on 18-19 June 2025. The event is part of a series of initiatives of RECONNET (REsearch in CONstitutional Theory NETwork), set up in collaboration with the universities of Valladolid and Bologna.

RECONNET gathers experts from European and non-European universities and, in line with its agenda, the workshop seeks to develop research in constitutional theory that goes beyond the classical doctrinal constitutional law approach. It combines philosophy of law, constitutional law, political philosophy and sociology of law. The interdisciplinary character of the initiative aims to spur a debate about the role of law in society at a time of unprecedented challenges to constitutional democracy. These challenges range from the environmental crisis and the emergence and consolidation of populist and authoritarian governments to the growth of AI and the crisis of representation at both national and supranational levels. RECONNET’s focus is in particular on the interaction between constitutionalism and democracy and its implications for contemporary societies.

During a two-day event, keynote speaker Carmen Pavel (Reader in Politics, Philosophy and Economics at King’s College, London) will present a topic of general interest, connected with the theme of the conference. The keynote speech will be followed by several sessions in which members of the network will present their own work-in-progress research. The event is also addressed to PhD and master students.

The RECONNET’s initiatives aim to establish forms of permanent collaboration among the members, and intervene in the contemporary debate at both the academic and societal level.

This project investigates the role of objects – both natural entities and human-made artefacts – as active agents in shaping legal, epistemic, and social frameworks. The project aims to rethink the relationship between humans, objects, and nature by examining how objects influence world-making practices and normative orders. Its overarching goal is to develop new interdisciplinary perspectives that challenge human-centred approaches to various aspects of social governance and sustainability.

The project pioneers a novel dialogue between epistemic and legal theories, integrating insights from archaeology, science and technology studies, environmental studies, and material culture to address the agency of objects. While these fields have long considered object agency, their legal and epistemic dimensions remain underexplored. The project challenges traditional human-centric legal paradigms by examining objects as epistemic and legal actors. It introduces innovative frameworks to address emerging issues such as environmental governance, technological agency, and the preservation of cultural heritage. Including diverse case studies and outputs, such as an exhibit showcasing objects ‘legal and epistemic lives,’ further demonstrates the project's commitment to breaking new ground.

The team consists of scholars from legal history, international law, criminology, private law, and philosophy. Collaborators include André Nunes Chaib (public international law), Donna Yates (criminology), Tullio Viola (FASoS/philosophy), Anna de Jong (private law), and Agustín Parise (legal history). Together, they will analyse object agency's epistemic and normative implications through literature reviews, theoretical integration, and practical outputs like a collective volume and an exhibit. The project also plans to establish partnerships with external institutions, museums, and researchers to foster ongoing interdisciplinary collaboration and expand the impact of its findings.