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.

Extremism is a phenomenon that bothers various EU member states. It is difficult to define, and difficult to study. In this contribution we look at extremism from the perspective of the Dialogical Self Theory (DST). This theory is well-known in personality psychology. Recently is has got a development that could make it relevant for understanding, predicting and preventing extremism. The issue at stake is the relation between diversity, dialogue and democracy.

De toename en verbreding van politiek-maatschappelijke akkoorden (tussen politici en belangenorganisaties) en parlementaire akkoorden (tussen fracties in de Tweede Kamer) roept de vraag op of de parlementaire democratie hiermee gediend is. Internationale literatuur wijst op de ontwikkeling naar een verzwakking van de positie van parlementen. De Nederlandse praktijk van ‘regeren bij akkoord’ versterkt deze trend, met name in het geval van politiek-maatschappelijke akkoorden (waaronder klimaatakkoorden). Het eventuele gebruik van dergelijke akkoorden zou zo moeten worden vormgegeven dat het parlement voldoende tijd en ruimte heeft om de resultaten ervan te doorgronden en eventueel te wijzigen.

Het adagium van medezeggenschap, dat ‘zij de zeggenschap volgt’, ligt ten grondslag aan de in 1971 ingevoerde structuurregeling. Het doel dat destijds met deze regeling werd nagestreefd, betrof het verschaffen van een stem aan werknemers op het hoogste niveau binnen de onderneming. De structuurregeling moest dus voorzien in de groeiende behoefte aan vennootschappelijke medezeggenschap. In dit artikel analyseren de auteurs de Nederlandse structuurregeling voor naamloze en besloten vennootschapen. Ook is er enige aandacht voor rechtsvergelijking met het Duitse recht. De kernvraag die de auteurs beantwoorden, is in hoeverre het vennootschappelijke medezeggenschapsrecht op basis van de structuurregeling in Nederland nog het beoogde effect heeft.

Exile and migration are once more central issues in the contemporary European predicament. This short article intends to discuss these questions elaborating on the ideas of two Spanish authors, a novelist, Max Aub, and a philosopher, María Zambrano, both marked by the tragic events of civil war and forced expatriation. Exile and migration in their existential perspective are meant as a prologue to the vindication of citizenship.

The central aim of this article is to analyse the manner in which the legal structure of EU citizenship subjectifies Union citizens. I begin by explicating Alexander Somek’s account of individualism as a concept which captures EU citizenship and propose to update his analysis by coining the notion of mobile individualism. By looking at a range of CJEU’s case law on EU citizenship through the lens of the purely internal rule and the transnational character of EU citizenship, I suggest that movement sits at the core of EU citizenship. In order to adequately capture this unique structure of citizenship, we need a concept of individualism which takes movement rather than depoliticisation as its central object of analysis. I propose that the notion of mobile individualism can best capture the subjectivity of a model EU citizen, a citizen who is a-political due to being mobile.

In legal education, criticism is conceived as an academic activity. As lecturers, we expect from students more than just the expression of their opinion; they have to evaluate and criticize a certain practice, building on a sound argumentation and provide suggestions on how to improve this practice. Criticism not only entails a negative judgment but is also constructive since it aims at changing the current state of affairs that it rejects (for some reason or other). In this article, we want to show how we train critical writing in the legal skills course for first-year law students (Juridische vaardigheden) at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. We start with a general characterization of the skill of critical writing on the basis of four questions: 1. Why should we train critical writing? 2. What does criticism mean in a legal context? 3. How to carry out legal criticism? and 4. How to derive recommendations from the criticism raised? Subsequently, we discuss, as an illustration to the last two questions, the Dutch Urgenda case, which gave rise to a lively debate in the Netherlands on the role of the judge. Finally, we show how we have applied our general understanding of critical writing to our legal skills course. We describe the didactic approach followed and our experiences with it.

This article builds upon the work of James Boyd White as well as on Shelley’s ‘A defence of Poetry’ (1840) and reports upon an experiment in which students use poetry as a means to understand philosophical texts. The experiment had a double goal: first, I sought to challenge students in reading a philosophical text differently with an aim to better understand the text. The second goal was to challenge students to think about the text differently, more critically and analyse its relevance for the contemporary world. In the end, using imagination, is the claim, contributes to students finding their own ‘voice’.

Living in a multicultural environment may be accompanied with an increased fear of crime. Residents may become alienated in a very diverse environment and withdraw themselves in their own social world. This ‘hunkering down’ may ensue feelings of unsafety. However, social scientists have done hardly any research on whether citizens who live in a multicultural environment in Western Europe actually feel more unsafe. This study seeks to contribute to fill in this knowledge gap. The authors’ research reveals that residents are more likely to feel unsafe in neighborhoods with a high degree of ethnic diversity. The aforementioned correlation is the most noticeable in neighborhoods consisting of people on medium incomes.

In dit artikel staat centraal dat de beperking van de door het Hof van Justitie geformuleerde ‘cao-exceptie’ op het Europese mededingingsrecht tot ‘werknemers’ en ‘schijnzelfstandigen’ zich moeilijk tot een grondrechtenbenadering lijkt te verhouden. Zelfstandigen met een zwakke arbeidsmarktpositie hebben namelijk evenzeer behoefte aan collectieve middelen om hun arbeidsvoorwaarden te verbeteren en vallen ook onder grondrechtenverdragen. Door een uitgebreide beschouwing van de relevante rechtsinstrumenten van de VN, de IAO en de Raad van Europa en de uitleg die de toezichtorganen hieraan geven blijkt dat het grondrecht op vrijheid van (vak)vereniging, collectief onderhandelen en collectieve actie evenzeer aan deze groep lijkt toe te komen, en een te rigoureuze inperking vanwege het mededingingsrecht niet gerechtvaardigd wordt geacht. De conclusie bevat enkele gedachten over hoe het Europese mededingingsrecht met een grondrechtenbenadering overeenstemming te brengen. Daarbij passeren zowel de recente ontwikkelingen rondom het zelfstandigenvraagstuk in Nederland als initiatieven op Europees niveau de revue.

In deze bijdrage, die een weerslag biedt van de door Lorenzo Squintani gehouden presentatie tijdens de VMR-bijeenkomst op 31 mei 2018, staat de vraag centraal welke eisen het internationaal en Unierecht stellen aan rechtsbescherming tegen plannen en programma’s in het omgevingsrecht, en in hoeverre Nederland daaraan voldoet. Ter beantwoording van deze vraag wordt eerst het Verdrag van Aarhus en de implementatie daarvan in het Unierecht bekeken, waarbij ook de reikwijdte van het begrip ‘plannen en programma’s’ in het EU-milieurecht wordt geschetst. Daarna wordt ingegaan op de toetsing overeenkomstig het Unierecht en de (on)mogelijkheid van exceptieve toetsing. Dit wordt gevolgd door een analyse van het Nederlandse rechtssysteem, waarna geconcludeerd wordt dat dit rechtssysteem op onderdelen tekort lijkt te schieten, gelet op het internationaal en Unierecht.

This article presents a perspective which focuses on the right to access information as a mean to ensure a non-discriminatory character of algorithms by providing an alternative to the right to explanation implemented in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). I adopt the evidence-based assumption that automated decision-making technologies have an inherent discriminatory potential. The example of a regulatory means which to a certain extent addresses this problem is the approach based on privacy protection in regard to the right to explanation. The Articles 13-15 and 22 of the GDPR provide individual users with certain rights referring to the automated decision-making technologies. However, the right to explanation not only may have a very limited impact, but it also focuses on individuals thus overlooking potentially discriminated groups. Because of this, the article offers an alternative approach on the basis of the right to access information. It explores the possibility of using this right as a tool to receive information on the algorithms determining automated decision-making solutions. Tracking an evolution of the interpretation of Article 10 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Right and Fundamental Freedoms in the relevant case law aims to illustrate how the right to access information may become a collective-based approach towards the right to explanation. I consider both, the potential of this approach, such as its more collective character e.g. due to the unique role played by the media and NGOs in enforcing the right to access information, as well as its limitations.

In recent years, there has been growing policy support for expanding worker ownership of businesses in the European Union. Debates on stimulating worker ownership are a regular feature of discussions on the collaborative economy and the future of work, given anxieties regarding the reconfiguration of the nature of work and the decline of standardised employment contracts. Yet, worker ownership, in the form of labour-managed firms such as worker cooperatives, remains marginal. This article explains the appeal of worker cooperatives and examines the reasons why they continue to be relatively scarce. Taking its cue from Henry Hansmann’s hypothesis that organisational innovations can make worker ownership of firms viable in previously untenable circumstances, this article explores how organisational innovations, such as those embodied in the capital and governance structure of Decentralised (Autonomous) Organisations (D(A)Os), can potentially facilitate the growth of LMFs. It does so by undertaking a case study of a blockchain project, Colony, which seeks to create decentralised, self-organising companies where decision-making power derives from high-quality work. For worker cooperatives, seeking to connect globally dispersed workers through an online workplace, Colony’s proposed capital and governance structure, based on technological and game theoretic insight may offer useful lessons. Drawing from this pre-figurative structure, self-imposed institutional rules may be deployed by worker cooperatives in their by-laws to avoid some of the main pitfalls associated with labour management and thereby, potentially, vitalise the formation of the cooperative form.

For quite some years now, crimes of ‘the powerful’ have been studied by criminologists. While researching crimes of ‘the powerful’, researchers aim to maintain and safeguard their integrity and ethics. However, there seems to be a friction between, on the one hand, ethics of the researchers themselves and on the other hand, ethics (policies) of universities. Obviously, not only do they have to justify their actions and decisions to themselves and ‘science’ as a whole, they must justify their research to ethics committees (EC’s) of universities. It could result in complex and difficult situations when researchers suspect that EC’s themselves may be instruments and products of the powerful groups they are studying. In that case, EC’s might undermine ethics and research integrity themselves. What do certain EC- ‘conditions’ look like for research ethics and to which extent do they have to be adjusted or reconsidered when criminologists are researching ‘the powerful’? The key question that will be answered in this contribution is as follows: how can criminologist (re)act ethically responsibly when confronted with (un)ethical committees? To answer this and other relevant questions, after reviewing literature, we reflect on a biographical study of a legal arms trader. We then elaborate on the ‘ethics creep’ (Haggerty, 2004) that seems to haunt social sciences nowadays.

Met zijn Proeve van een verbeterde Grondwet geeft Huub Linthorst oplossingen voor de risico’s die uit zijn ‘stresstest’ naar voren kwamen. Tot de voorstellen behoren de afschaffing van de Eerste Kamer, de invoering van het toetsingsrecht, versterking van (de formulering van) de grondrechten, een lichtere herzieningsprocedure en de invoering van een bindend referendum. Aan de doelstelling van haalbaarheid heeft Linthorst voldaan door op belangrijke punten tegemoet te komen aan voor- en tegenstanders. Naast verbetering en haalbaarheid, is het doel van deze Proeve het bereiken van meer democratie en van effectievere waarborgen tegen aantasting van onze rechtstaat. Of deze Proeve, na het bereiken van het Staatsblad meer democratie brengt en bovendien een dam kan opwerpen tegen schendingen van de rechtsstaat zoals die in Polen en Hongrijke, is allerminst gegarandeerd. Afgezien van het gebruikelijke cynisme over de normatieve kracht van de Grondwet, beslaat onze geschreven constitutie steeds minder de constitutionele werkelijkheid.

The maxim ‘law in books and law in action’ relays an implicit dichotomy, and though the constitutive nature of law is nowadays commonly professed, the reflex remains to use law in books as an autonomous starting point. Law however, it is argued in this article, has a storyline that commences before its institutional formalisation. Law as ‘a continuous process of becoming’ encompasses both law in books and law in action, and law in action encompasses timelines both before and after the formal coming about of law. To fully understand law, it is necessary to understand the entire storyline of law. Qualitative studies in law and society are well equipped to offer valuable insights on the facets of law outside the books. The insights are not additional to doctrinal understanding, but part and parcel of it. To illustrate this, an ethnographic case study of local bylaws regulating an ethnically diverse public space of everyday life is expanded upon. The case study is used to demonstrate the insights qualitative data yields with regard to the dynamics in which law comes about, and how these dynamics continue for law in action after law has made the books. This particular case study moreover exemplifies how law is one of many truths in the context in which it operates, and how formalised law is reflective of the power constellations that have brought it forth.