Three lecturers from the Institute of Public Law have been awarded a €10,000 Kiem Grant for innovative interdisciplinary research projects. The grant, which was awarded for the last time this year, promotes collaboration among researchers, lecturers, and support staff from at least two different faculties of Leiden University.
The projects of Vincent Delhomme (European Law), Aviva de Groot (Constitutional and Administrative Law), and Letizia Lo Giaccio (Grotius Centre) focus respectively on European studies, the relationship between colonial history and administrative law, and the role of the Netherlands as a host state for international courts and tribunals.
The Kiem Grant supports initiatives such as building research networks, organising workshops and conferences, conducting pilot studies, and developing new research proposals.
Interdisciplinary Conference on European Studies in the Netherlands (ICESN): Rethinking the EU in the Age of Crisis
Vincent Delhomme with Kristina Toenshoff (Social and Behavioural Sciences), Seda Gürkan (Governance and Global Affairs), Billy Tsagkroni (Social and Behavioural Sciences) en Daniel Schade (Humanities)
The Europe Hub at Leiden University will organise a conference exploring how recent crises have shaped the development of the European Union. Inspired by Jean Monnet's famous observation that Europe is forged through crises, the conference will examine the EU's responses to a succession of economic, geopolitical, health, environmental, and social challenges since the 2008 financial crisis.
Bringing together scholars from different disciplines, the event will address how crises influence European integration, governance, and public perceptions of the EU. Discussions will be structured around four themes: Europe's role in the world; markets, trade, and digitalisation; energy, environment, and health; and the foundations of European integration, including questions of legitimacy, effectiveness, and public trust.
Through eight panels, participants will explore the challenges facing Europe today and reflect on the future direction of the European project in an increasingly uncertain world.
Traces of (colonial) resistance, directions for legal reform
Aviva de Groot with Bart Verheijen (Humanities)
This project aims to create practically useful knowledge on the theme of 'countervailing bureaucratic power'. Contemporary cases of data-driven institutional injustice are studied against the backdrop of Dutch colonial practices of the past. This period is of historical significance for understanding the entanglement of state power and data technologies. Early theorizations around the role of public servants in the enactment, or thwarting, of state policies are equally of interest. The central question is how a historically informed understanding of public servants resistance to bureaucratic power abuse helps us today in assessing the strengths and weaknesses of regulatory governance. What can we learn from historical traces of principles, rules, and other factors that legitimate or hamper resistance?
Two workshops will start off the endeavor of collecting a body of sources and designing methods for the interdisciplinary activities. For these we will invite colleagues from both faculties, as well as civil society organizations, and students. We eventually hope to integrate the theme into (interdisciplinary) education as well!
Hosting Global Justice: The Netherlands and International Courts (ICJ & ICC)
Letizia Lo Giacco with Otto Spijkers (Governance and Global Affairs)
In a climate of backlash against multilateral international organizations and international judicial institutions, the question is prompted as to whether the Netherlands, as the host state of many of those institutions, has a role to play in protecting their activities from aggressive political interferences. In particular, which responsibilities (legal, political, ethical) come with hosting the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC)? What can be legitimately expected from the Netherlands to protect the ICC from the sanctions imposed on the ICC personnel by the Trump administration? Can one assume that the Netherlands is expected to uphold the pronouncements of the ICJ, even when not legally-binding on it, regardless of its political agenda and geopolitical alliances? These questions are becoming more pressing by the day, since political pressures impact the work of the international judicial institutions, especially when governments oppose their activities or try to influence their action.
This fund will be used to foster an interdisciplinary conversation on the role of the Netherlands in hosting global justice, amid actions that international courts and tribunals are facing in fulfilling their mandate.
Fitting finale
The three funded projects demonstrate how interdisciplinary collaboration can generate new research questions and foster new networks. They therefore provide a fitting finale to the last edition of the Kiem Grant programme.
