The Public-Private Challenge

Erasmus School of Law and the Faculty of Law of Groningen University have joined forces in the ‘The Public-Private Challenge’, addressing cross-cutting societal challenges across various levels of governance (local, national and international), across various disciplines (public and private law, economics, criminology), both empirical and doctrinal, and across various sectors (ecology, health, finance, technology) to guarantee an integrated approach to the study of public and private interests. 

Research & Impact

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Events

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Upcoming event

Call for papers: Workshop Theorizing Protest and Legal Mobilization

The intertwining of protest, social movements, and law challenges classical legal dichotomies such as private-public, creation-implementation, political-legal or individual-community. The aim of this special workshop is to reflect on theoretical approaches to protest and legal mobilization from the perspective of contemporary legal and political philosophy. This workshop is organized by Sanne Taekema (Erasmus School of Law) and Michał Stambulski (Erasmus School of Law).

Recent publications

The chapter reflects on the relationship between human rights discourse and populism from a politico-philosophical and socio-legal position. In this perspective, human rights and politics are closely linked. These rights are vocalized in the political process and mediated by social institutions. Contemporary populism is founded on the moralistic imagination based on an axis of elite-population division that leads to the necessity of a social transformation within which power and social resources will be redistributed. At the same time, such political rhetoric and practice emphasize its democratic character, which distinguishes it from simple authoritarianism. This leads to populism acceptance, at least rhetorically, of the universalist human rights discourse with the simultaneous need to change its content. The populist regime of Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość) in the years 2015–2023 in Poland provides a useful case study in this regard. Populism’s attitude towards human rights is not explicit and does not consist of simple rejection. Populism instead redefines the relationship between the community and individual rights through rhetoric that violates minority rights and policies that strengthens social rights and distributes recognition based on national identity. As a result, populism pursues its own, different from (but grown out of) liberal, more republican politics of human rights.

Een analyse van Gerechtshof ’s-Hertogenbosch 6 september 2022,
ECLI:NL:GHSHE:2022:3091 (Pand uit 1948 met energieprestatiecertificaat F).

De verkoper en de aankoopmakelaar worden aangesproken in dit arrest (gerechtshof ’s-Hertogenbosch 6 september 2022, ECLI:NL:GHSHE:2022:3091 (Pand uit 1948 met energieprestatiecertificaat F)) door de consument-kopers wegens non-conformiteit en schending van de zorgplicht. Deze zaak is met name interessant met het oog op de gedane mededelingen en de relatie tot het verstrekte energieprestatiecertificaat bij de koop van de woning. In de huidige tijd, waarin de kosten voor energie steeds belangrijker worden, is het interessant of consument-kopers de verkoper en aankoopmakelaar kunnen aanspreken in verband met de verwachtingen omtrent isolatie die bij de aankondiging op internet, in de NVM-vragenlijst en het energieprestatiecertificaat zijn gewekt.

Capitalism as Civilisation: A History of International Law articulates the kind of international legal history that reflects the field’s co-constitutive relation to global capitalism. This is done through the lens of the standard of ‘civilisation’ – a concept that Ntina Tzouvala shows to be both flexible and plastic and yet consistent in mediating the needs of capitalist expansion. A key insight of Capitalism as Civilisation is that ‘civilisation’ has functioned as an argumentative pattern that has been decisive for the allocation of rights and duties among different communities. Tzouvala illustrates how the adaptability and non-static nature of ‘civilisation’, and more precisely its oscillation between a ‘logic of improvement’ and a ‘logic of biology’, have contributed to its longevity and its continuing relevance for contemporary modes of capitalist accumulation. In brief, the ‘logic of improvement’ has conveyed a promise of equal participation in international law, insofar as non-Western communities would be willing to adopt the institutions and structures of Western capitalist modernity. At the same time, the ‘logic of biology’ consistently denied that very promise on account of inherent – and thus insurmountable – difference. As I will attempt to show in this review, Tzouvala uses these findings to make a broader intervention on the relationship of international law to global political economy, drawing the contours of a materialist legal theory.

DOI: 10.1080/20414005.2023.220353

News
Call for Papers Conference ‘Law in the Age of Transitions: Public Interests and Private Powers’

Call for Papers Conference ‘Law in the Age of Transitions: Public Interests and Private Powers’

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“Mixity in Private and/or Public Law” Conference in Malta, 14-16 June 2023

On 14-16 June 2023, the 5th World Congress of the World Society of Mixed Jurisdiction Jurists...
28th Annual Meeting of the Common Core in Groningen

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The University of Groningen is proud to host the 28 th  Annual Meeting of the Common Core of...
Workshop ‘Populism, Non-State Actors and Legal Mobilization in Europe’

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Date: 22nd of March 2023  Location: European University Institute, Florence  Organizers:...
Gendered Dynamics of Environmental Crime

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On Wednesday 21 September 2022, the seminar “Environmental Crime & Gender” took...
Call for Papers: ‘SUMMER ACADEMY Law and Political Economy in Europe’

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The Law and Political Economy (LPE) in Europe Network invites applications for its first Summer...
Call for Papers: ‘Digital Technologies, Public Policy and Competition Law’

Call for Papers: ‘Digital Technologies, Public Policy and Competition Law’

On 1 and 2 June 2023, the “Digital Technologies, Public Policy and Competition Law”...

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University of Groningen
Faculty of Law
Oude Kijk in ‘t Jatstraat 26
9712 EK Groningen
The Netherlands

Erasmus University Rotterdam
Erasmus School of Law
Burgemeester Oudlaan 50
3062 PA Rotterdam
The Netherlands

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