This article gives a compact overview of developments in national and European law regarding same-sex partners. Over the last decades, new legal family formats (such as registered partnership and de facto union) have been made available in a growing number of countries. The number of countries that have opened up marriage to same-sex couples is also growing. Authors of comparative family law have proposed various classifications of the new legal family formats. Meanwhile, an increasing number of EU laws now acknowledge non-marital partners. The European Courts have been asked several times to rule on controversial differentiations between different legal family formats or between same-sex and different-sex partners. In the case law of the European Court of Human Rights one can find examples of affirmative eloquence which suggest that more steps towards full legal recognition of same-sex families could be expected.

The arrival of asylum seekers has become a major political and social issue in Europe recently, although not for the first time in history. This article describes and analyses the reasons why growing numbers of undocumented migrants come to Europe, many of them as asylum seekers. One important reason is growing political instability in a ring of countries that surround the EU. The article also describes the different routes undocumented migrants take to the EU, the rapid changes that occur in the choice of routes, and the backgrounds of these changes. Although most attention goes to the risky transit in the Central Mediterranean area, and the number of migrants taking this route is growing, a majority of asylum seekers has reached the EU via other routes. Finally, this article also indicates roads towards finding solutions to the issue; this can only be achieved in the context of the EU.

In light of the high numbers of persons entering the EU via the southern borders and the current uneven distribution of asylum seekers (five Member States of the EU currently received in 2014 more than 70% of the total amount of refugees), there is a clear and urgent need for the EU ministers to ensure a fairer distribution of asylum seekers within the EU. The Dublin Regulation’s system of allocating the responsibility for an asylum request does not offer a solution for this challenge, also because Member States cannot have a blind faith in the standards of a number of states for processing asylum requests. There are significant differences in the application of the law and the procedures.

In this article the authors use empirical data from the Dutch Organised Crime Monitor to give empirical insight into the investments of organised crime offenders in legal economy. Using a dataset of 1,196 individual investments, they look into what kind of assets offenders purchase and where these assets are located. The authors use the empirical results to assess the tenability of different theoretical perspectives and assumptions that are present in the literature on money laundering and organised crime: the standard economic approach, the criminal infiltration approach and the social opportunity structure. The results of this study show that offenders predominantly invest in their home country and that their investments consist of tangible, familiar assets such as residences and other real estate and companies from well-known sectors. Investments such as bonds as well as stocks in companies in which offenders are not personally involved, were only found in a small number of cases. To put it differently: offenders usually stay close to home with their investments. Based on these results, the concept of social opportunity structure seems to be best suited to understand offenders’ investment choices.

Offshore companies play a substantial role in the laundering of dirty money, especially in bigger cases. This article reflects on the definition of offshore companies and analyses several cases of money laundering through these often complicated financial business structures. The lack of knowledge on offshore money laundering practices hampers criminal investigation worldwide. Improving the registration of cases and sharing knowledge internationally would help to develop better prevention measures and to detect money laundering through offshore companies. The author also provides a list of risk indicators signalizing possible abuse of offshore companies.

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.