Introduction In my previous blog I gave a modest impetus to define the concept of ‘the unity of law’ and I have discussed a number of instruments which in any case (also) aim to optimize the unity of law. The following four instruments are distinguished: institutional reform, preliminary ruling procedure, coordination and a differentiated discursive…

Eddy Bauw Under the headline ‘The claim industry’, the Volkskrant on Saturday the 27th of February devoted attention to the increase in the number of collective redress procedures in the Netherlands. The figures presented by the newspaper are clear: organisations who allegedly represent half a million people, have in total claimed 1.6 billion euros in…

In his ‘The Unity of Law 1: Blogging about the unity of law?’, Eddy Bauw gave an inspiring kick-off on the subject of the unity of law. It is the intention to – with this blog as a starting point – start a series about that topic. With this blog and the next blog, this…

Ivo Giesen In December 2015 my book ‘Principles of civil procedure’ was published as part of the Asser Procesrecht-series (‘Beginselen van burgerlijk procesrecht’ Wolters Kluwer: Deventer 2015). In this book, I discuss, after some general considerations, the guiding principles of civil procedure from a Dutch and European perspective. Based on the research into and the…

In Dutch administrative law, a familiar view entails that the administrative court should not ‘occupy the chair of the executive’. By virtue of its powers, the government would have a ‘discretionary latitude of decision’ in which it is only under democratic control; insofar as it is not a matter of a ‘criminal charge’ there is…

  Antoine Buyse Having a split personality is usually not seen as a positive thing. Not for the outside world, and not for the person itself. Robert Stevenson’s novel about Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde famously showed how the constant shifting between personalities can almost destroy someone. A clear and unified self-perception and image is…

Eddy Bauw The kick-off Let me get straight to the point. The aim of this blog is to start a series about the ‘coherence of law’. The idea to do this arose after a session of the Montaigne Centre in July about this theme. During the session it became clear that the participants had rather…

Julie Fraser The Association of Human Rights Institutes (AHRI) held their 16th annual conference on 21-22 September 2015 in Serbia, hosted by the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights.  This blog gives a brief overview of my experiences at the conference. The theme of the conference was Human Rights and Universality, in acknowledgment of the new…

Judges in the Netherlands are rebelling against the endless series of changes in the organization of the judiciary. What is occurring is more than a simple merger; the organization has become too dominant in the judges’ work. Judges do substantive work. They give judgments in other people’s disputes. To be able to do that work…

Rick Verschoof This week I realized that during my entire professional life I have had to deal with changes. This already started when I was still working at the UU from 1985 until 1994. Simply in the education I experienced the semester system (2 teaching periods), the ‘block system’ (5 teaching periods) and the trimester…