10 August 2022
The Future of European Climate Change Litigation
On 7 June 2022 the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) relinquished jurisdiction to the Grand Chamber to hear the application lodged on 28 January 2021 on behalf of Damien Carême, former mayor of the Commune of Grande Synthe in France. While the case shares some characteristics with other climate change cases pending before the Court, it differs in some key respects, making it a unique case of its kind at the moment. The Court will have to be open to a shift towards a more ecological interpretation of the Convention and demonstrate its ability and talent to rise to the historic task required. Continue reading >>
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05 Juli 2022
The Costs of Outsourcing
Last month the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) granted an urgent interim measure according to Rule 39 of the Rules of the Court in a case concerning an imminent removal of an asylum-seeker from the UK to Rwanda. The UK's policy of outsourcing sets another dangerous precedence when it comes to restricting territorial asylum and the basic rights of asylum seekers. It is expensive, contrary to international human rights obligations, has significant adverse effects on those affected, scratches the state´s reputation, and increases existing tensions with the ECtHR. Continue reading >>
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28 Februar 2022
Wirtschaftssanktionen gegen Russland und ihre rechtlichen Grenzen
In der Dynamik der letzten Tage wurden von den USA, der Europäischen Union und anderen Staaten Sanktionen gegen Russland beschlossen, die als „beispiellos“ und „verheerend“ bezeichnet wurden. Russland spricht von „illegitimen“ Sanktionen und droht gar mit atomarer Abschreckung. Tatsächlich stehen die erlassenen Wirtschaftssanktionen auf sicherem rechtlichen Boden. Sie sind in einem gewissen Maß sogar Voraussetzung dafür, dass der Boden des Völkerrechts nicht wegbricht Continue reading >>03 Februar 2022
Shifts in Historiography
Today, there appears to be more consensus about the unjust nature of the Dutch/Indonesian war. As a scholar who has studied the evolution of the discourse on this topic, being asked to contribute to a symposium about the relation between decolonisation and human rights, is the perfect occasion to look back. Continue reading >>
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29 Januar 2022
The Dutch Family Reunification Procedure
Being able to reunite with family from abroad falls under the right to family life, one of the fundamental rights every individual is entitled to. Despite this, some Dutch family reunification requirements are potentially at odds with international human rights law standards and the EU Directive 2003/86/EC on the right to family reunification. This problematic state of affairs reflects the ongoing racialization of European borders, and that of Dutch borders in particular. Continue reading >>
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29 Januar 2022
The Racialized Borders of the Netherlands
The principal function of borders in immigration law is to distinguish between persons and goods which are permitted to enter a territory and those which are not. I call this the filtering function of the border. In this short contribution, I enquire into how this filtering function of the border operates in the context of border controls in the Netherlands. More specifically, I argue that the way border controls are performed in the Netherlands structurally produces racialized subjects. Continue reading >>
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28 Januar 2022
Postcolonial Migration and Citizenship in the Netherlands
Can formerly colonized subjects and their descendants be full and equal citizens of the former metropoles – and if so, what would that look like? In this blogpost, we explore these politics of belonging in European postcolonial polities by looking at different conceptualizations of the relationship between the Dutch state and Surinamese-Dutch citizens and immigrants. While Dutch government discourses tend to represent Surinamese-Dutch as too different to belong to the Dutch Nation, Surinamese-Dutch organisations claimed postcolonial citizenship as different and equal. Continue reading >>
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27 Januar 2022
Rights for Others, Firing Back?
Colonialism and decolonization have importantly shaped the constitutional trajectories of not only the colonized states, but also those of the colonizers. For the Netherlands, decolonization did not only dictate the pace of various constitutional reforms in the mid-20th century that were ‘needed’ to erase Indonesia (1948) and New Guinea (1963) from the text of the constitution, but also introduced new constitutional documents, such as the 1949 Dutch-Indonesian Union Charter and the 1954 Charter of the Kingdom. While it is necessary to critically analyze the impact of these postcolonial arrangements on former colonies, it is equally urgent to fill the profound gap in knowledge about the impact of colonialism and decolonization on domestic constitutional arrangements. Continue reading >>
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26 Januar 2022
Clause 9 of the Nationality and Borders Bill
In July 2021, the UK government set to work on a new Nationality and Borders Bill. Should this far-reaching amendment acquire statutory force, it will raise important questions about the capacity of the UK constitution to prevent sweeping executive authorisation, even in matters with intense bearing on the most profound human rights and entitlements. Continue reading >>
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25 Januar 2022
Aggression, War Crimes, and the Indonesian Revolution
The specter of the Indonesian Revolution is still haunting our understanding of Dutch imperial violence. In this blog post, I want to highlight two central issues regarding the conflict’s legal history – one involving the alleged non-application of the laws of war to the conflict which has been a mainstay argument in Dutch official narratives, and the other regarding the ways in which we delineate today our legal-moral reasoning with respect to Dutch transgression. Continue reading >>
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