In our daily decision-making processes, attitudes play an important role. An attitude is an evaluative judgement of a person, object or an issue on a scale of favorability. A large amount of research has been done on the role of attitudes in our daily decision-making processes. There is, however, a gap in empirical knowledge when it concerns the role of attitudes in the professional judicial decision-making process. It has been accepted that the professional judicial decision-making process has a subjective element, but this subjective element remains unexplained. Attitudes are inherently personal and subjective, and they can make our decision-making process easier. They can, however, also be the basis for biases and prejudices. Herein lies a potential risk, especially in the professional judicial decision-making process. If attitudes play a role in the decision-making process of judges there is a possibility that impartiality, one of the judiciary’s core professional values, might be unobtainable. To see whether attitudes play a role in the professional judicial decision-making process semi-structured interviews will be conducted among judges, who will also be asked to fill in a scenario survey. Hopefully the obtained data will lead to a start in filling this gap in empirical knowledge.

As a reaction to the perceived enforcement deficit of criminal law in the field of drug control, several countries implemented alternative regulatory strategies. One such strategy is the reregulating drugs, especially cannabis. Another strategy is the use of civil or administrative law to address drug-related crime. Especially the use of eviction to combat drug activities has become increasingly popular.
My PhD research focuses on these two developments within the field of drug control. More specifically, on the underlying rationales for the policies on recreational cannabis, the possibilities that international law provide to regulate recreational cannabis, the legal protection against drug-related evictions, and the explanation for the use of eviction to fight drug-related activities.

There is little known on settlement negotiations during civil lawsuits in the Netherlands. Settlement negotiations take place during a (suspension of the) public court hearing. The public hearing takes place in the majority of the civil lawsuits in the Netherlands. The qualitative empirical research I am carrying out, intents to give insight in these settlement negotiations and questions what lawyers actually do during these negotiations. The research intents to contribute to the effectiveness of settlement negotiations in the sense that (i) the number of settlements increases and of compulsory settlements decreases, (ii) the perceived fairness of procedure and outcome in settled cases increases, and (iii) the number of resolved underlying conflicts increases.
I expect to find that most settlement negotiations can be qualified as distributive negotiations (as opposed to integrative negotiations). Furthermore, based on a literature review on biases and heuristics I hypothesized that settlement could be more effective than they actually are. The paper touches on the methodology and on both hypotheses.

Over the last two decades, there has been a growing interest in the development and implementation of knowledge management systems. In the judicial context, these knowledge management systems are designed to support judges in the decision-making process by providing them with the knowledge that they need in order to deal with doubts or uncertainties in complex cases. However, less attention has been given to the related process of knowledge sharing between judges. In order to optimally benefit from the knowledge available in the organization, this process should be better understood and acted upon. The aim of this research project is to gain a better insight into the interactive process of knowledge sharing between judges. To this end, a research model has been developed which will be quantitatively tested on the basis of survey responses from judges.