Latest blog articles

An important part of becoming a fully-fledged academic is the development and curation of a research line. A research line is the main research topic and the thread throughout (large parts of) a career. It could be law and technology in private law, globalisation in public law, human rights in...

What does the term ‘MOCCA’ evoke in your mind, a kind of coffee or a specific brand? This Kat randomly asked this question to her friends currently at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition Munich. Most of them regarded ‘MOCCA’ as a kind of coffee instead of a specific brand except...

Nobuki Yamamoto, a Japanese contemporary artist, made an eye-catching work of ‘goldfish swimming in a phone booth’ (‘Work 1’) by December 2000 at the latest. In October 2011, a student organisation called ‘Goldfish Club’ at Kyoto University of Art and Design produced Work 2 and exhibited it for a...

Recently, Chanel Co., Ltd. lost a trade mark infringement case regarding its ‘Double C’ logo in China. The full text of the decision can be visited via here (Google translatable). The case has drawn wide attention and, mostly, negative comments. Does this seemingly-counterintuitive loss indeed, well...

The biggest challenge of the 21^st century is undoubtedly the question of how to tackle the effects of a rising population, expanding industrialisation and growing environmental degradation. Apart from an ever complex world, there are externalities that are the result of the way humankind has been...

If one formula one car hits another, and one of the parties is to blame, does that create liability to pay for the repairs of the other?

At the hearing of the parliamentary interrogation commission, investigating tax evasion,Toine Manders claimed at June 16^th, that the government infringes people’s property rights by taxing. ^{(Dutch only)}

In his written answers to the European Parliament as well as orally during the hearing to establish his suitability to become first Vice-President of the European Commission, Commissioner Designate Frans Timmermans promises to ensure a common-sense test for all future legislation. I offer some legal...

In 2011 the European Commission announced it would propose a “European Accessibility Act” in 2012. The “Act” was to be an EU instrument which would seek to ensure a free market in products and services which were accessible to people with disabilities.

The European Union is a party to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This is the first and, thus far, the only human rights treaty to which the EU is a party. In accordance with Article 35 of the Convention, the EU submitted its State report on the steps which has taken to...