The COVID-19 pandemic caused overcrowded IC units. In the Netherlands a discussion erupted on what category of patients should be granted a bed, if there would not be enough place to treat everybody. In this article the medical guidelines for this situation as well as the public discussion are examined and related to Ulrich Beck’s theory of reflexive modernization. It is argued that discussion and regulation of this dilemma follow reflexive patterns, albeit patchy. The discussion and regulation displayed reflective understanding of the perilous position of the elderly and frail but issues of class and ethnicity were not discussed. This research revealed that Beck’s theory holds its own when tested in an empirical situation, but it has weaknesses in regard to the predicted emergence of cosmopolitan solidarity.

This article contains a plea for a further operationalization of the subsidiarity principle (penal law and punishment as ultimum remedium) through a maximalist restorative justice, i.e. a restorative justice that not only offers space for ‘voluntary processes’ and agreed restoration, but also for ‘compulsory procedures’ and imposed restoration. An attempt is made to make the maximalist arsenal of restorative sanctions as concrete as possible. Two examples of sanctions that are ‘constructed’ in a restorative way in this article, are restorative community service and restorative electronic home detention. This article is based on work by John Blad and Lode Walgrave that has previously appeared in Tijdschrift voor Herstelrecht.

Eigendom verschaft individuele vrijheid in bevoegdheden ten aanzien van zaken. Een historisch vergelijkende analyse in vrijheidsperspectief maakt duidelijk dat ons civiele eigendomsbegrip die bevoegdheden nader kan bepalen, en publieke belangen en plichten kan accommoderen, met oordeel des verstands en rechtvaardigheid, juist als persoon (subject) en zaak (object) bij de analyse worden betrokken.

The article examines and explains the relation of current Eastern Orthodox Theology to the concept of Human Rights. Putting the controversies into a larger historical and theological context, it seeks to highlight the conditions of a variety of Orthodox theological positions. Such positions, with their common features and strong differences, concern issues such as church and state, universalism or theological anthropology and human dignity. Considerations end with arguing, that much of the treasures of the Orthodox tradition still needs to be unearthed – to the benefit of Human Rights, and of all participants in current debates worldwide.

This article is about the history of the justice of the peace, a low profile judge where people easily have access to. The history of the justice of the peace goes back to the seventeenth century. The justice of the peace was reintroduced in the Netherlands in the French period, when the country was annexed by the French Empire under the reign of Napoleon. The justice of the peace was also introduced in Belgium and is still in use. The most important task of the justice of the peace is ‘conciliation’. In the conciliation procedure the justice of the peace has a very active role. The judge tries to mediate between the parties in order to come to an agreement.

Er komt een Nieuw Belgisch Burgerlijk Wetboek aan. Tot op heden hanteert België nog een minimaal aangepaste versie van de Code Civil Napoléon uit 1804. De bejaarde leeftijd van het wetboek laat zich echter op meerdere fronten gevoelen, waardoor de wetgever de tijd nu rijp acht om het Burgerlijk Wetboek te hervormen. Het Voorontwerp Boek 5 «Verbintenissen» komt in de hervorming van het Belgische burgerlijk recht een centrale plaats toe. Het zal mogelijk worden ingevoerd zonder dat wordt gewacht op de voltooiing van de andere onderdelen van het wetboek. Voor het contractenrecht betekent dit dat een nieuw evenwicht wordt gezocht tussen de autonomie van partijen en de mogelijkheden voor de rechter om op te treden in het algemeen belang of in het belang van de zwakkere partij. Deze bijdrage belicht de achtergrond van het Voorontwerp, alsook de redenen en doelstellingen van de hercodificatie. Daarbij wordt ook ingezoomd op de inhoud van het nieuwe Belgische contractenrecht en worden enkele belangrijke wijzigingen besproken.

Various forms of organized crime are concentrated in the Dutch province of North Brabant, bordering Belgium. In this essay it is argued that specific historic, geographic, social economic, cultural and social psychological factors created an enduring window of opportunity in which criminality can flourish. Brabant is portrayed as a marginalized province that suffered from war, exploitation by the central government, rural gangs, a lack of law enforcement, extreme poverty as well as from discrimination because of its mainly catholic population. Against this background the population developed a mentality of solving problems on their own. Their survival strategies implied not only legal activities like agriculture and small-scale production in private houses, workplaces and factories, but also smuggling and illegal alcohol production. In more recent times the production of synthetic drugs, growing cannabis and transport criminality became widespread.

De macht van de regel is beperkt. Veranderingen binnen de financiële sector en de gezondheidssector vereisen vooral een gedragsverandering van de traditionele spelers binnen die sectoren. Wet- en regelgeving kunnen maar een beperkte rol spelen om de vereiste veranderingen te realiseren. Dit geldt voor meerdere (publieke) sectoren van de samenleving. Zeker als sprake is van overregulering en daarmee samenhangende regeldruk, zoals in de financiële sector het geval is.

In today’s global economy, a noticeable trend is that the traditional state-law-centred legal framework is increasingly challenged by self-regulatory private orders. Commercial norms, commercial arbitration and social sanctions at the international level have become important alternatives to national laws, national courts and legal sanctions at the national level. Consisting of transnational commercial norms, both codified and uncodified, and legal norms, both national and international, a plural regime for the governance of transnational commercial transactions has emerged and developed in the past few decades. This article explores the interaction between various kinds of norms in this regime, identifies the effects of this interaction on the governance of transnational commercial transactions and shows the challenges to this interaction at the current stage. The central argument of this article is that the interaction between social and legal norms, namely incorporation and internalisation, and the three effects derived from incorporation and internalisation, namely systematisation, harmonisation and compliance enhancement, are evident at both the national and international levels. In particular, the emergence of codified transnational commercial norms that are positioned in the middle of the continuum between national legal norms and uncodified transnational commercial norms has brought changes to the interaction within the international dimension. Although the development of codified transnational commercial norms faces several challenges at the moment, it can be expected that these norms will play an increasingly important role in the future governance of transnational commercial transactions.

In the last couple of years we see new models of accessible and innovative jurisdiction, such as ‘neighbors judge’, ‘ejudge’ and the ‘office hour judge’. Are these innovations really new? This article gives insight into the Dutch legal history of accessible jurisdiction and compares the forms of accessible jurisdiction.

Given the rise of mediation in other legal disciplines and the influence of the EU, the call for mediation is increasing in Belgian administrative practice. Several years ago, the legislature took the first steps towards mediation in the judicial administrative procedure. This contribution is a study of the existing forms of mediation with its limitations and possibilities. Taking these findings into account, a possible mediation framework, applicable in the Belgian legal system, is proposed.

In this paper, an attempt is made to work out a methodology for comparative legal research, which goes beyond the ‘functional method’ or methodological scepticism.
The starting point is the idea that we need a ‘toolbox’, not a fixed methodological road map, and that a lot of published, but largely unnoticed, research outside rule and case oriented comparative law offers varying approaches, which could usefully be applied in comparative research. Six methods have been identified: the functional method, the structural one, the analytical one, the law-in-context method, the historical method, and the common core method. Basically, it is the aim of the research and the research question that will determine which methods could be useful. Moreover, different methods may be combined, as they are complementary and not mutually exclusive.This paper focuses on scholarly comparative legal research, not on the use of foreign law by legislators or courts, but, of course, the methodological questions and answers will largely overlap.

Rechtseenheid speelt in de juridische dogmatiek en de rechtsvorming een grote rol. Op tal van fronten wordt er onderzoek naar gedaan, beleid over ontwikkeld, en komt rechtseenheidbeogende wetgeving tot stand. Bij nadere bestudering blijkt het daarbij echter niet steeds over hetzelfde te gaan. In dit artikel wordt een typologie van varianten van rechtseenheid ontwikkeld. De auteurs analyseren het debat en trachten het te ontdoen van de begripsmatige verwarring. Vervolgens werken zij een van de varianten uit, namelijk rechtseenheid tussen rechtsnormen die niet logisch tegenstrijdig zijn. Daarna wordt besproken welke actoren en instrumenten een rol spelen bij het bewerkstelligen van die variant van rechtseenheid.

In a sequal to his earlier contribution in TMD 2014 (18) 2, p. 63, the author describes in more detail the ins and outs of the statute of 30 July 2013 on family and juvenile courts. With this new statute Belgian family and juvenile law are modernized. Also, the new statute started an autonomous development in family procedure, apart from the general civil procedure rules: most of the family conflicts can be solved in a shortened procedure and the possibility of mediation is introduced.

Criminal law is embedded in a specific view of man and the world. This thesis implies that a change of the view of man and the world leads necessarily to a change of criminal law. Since our view of man and the world is constantly changing, the same applies for our law governing wrongful conduct. In this article is described how our view of man and the world has changed through the ages (during pre-modernity and modernity) and what changes have occurred under the influence thereof. Given the limited size of this article, a macro-perspective is utilized. At the end of the article, the author advocates a new (trans-modern) view of man and the world and a new corresponding law governing wrongful conduct.

The public prosecutor should act as the knight fighting in court for a victim. A much more communicative strategy instead of one aiming at a juridical discourse will reframe what is happening in court and make it understandable for victims and public in general, Examples are given of how to do so. A discussion on the effects of such a strategy is presented.