Projects
Sabbatical Geert van Calster: Revisiting the separation of public – and private international law in the light of strategic environmental and human rights litigation KU Leuven
My research plans relate to the separation of international public and private law (which crystallizes in theories such as the foreign act of state doctrine) and the re-examination of this separation in the context of strategic litigation regarding the environment and human rights, but also, for example, data protection. The research into it largely interrogates historical sources such as Story, Dicey and Mann and there is no better place to ...
Intertemporal conflicts of private law statutes – A balancing act between innovation and legal certainty KU Leuven
Whenever an Act is changed, the question arises how to apply it intertemporally. Is the new Act applicable only to future situations? Or does it also apply to existing situations, or even to past situations? These questions (a.k.a. “intertemporal conflicts”) are governed by a branch of law called “transition law”. Sometimes the legislator solves these intertemporal conflicts via transition measures in the new Act (“explicit transition law”). ...
The Legal Challenges of Protecting Southern Africa’s Large Carnivores: an International Law Perspective KU Leuven
In recent years, the world has experienced a loss of biodiversity at an unprecedented rate. Although the international community has reacted to the alarming loss of biodiversity by adopting a number of international and regional treaties aimed at the protection of wildlife, these have so far not been successful in reversing the tide. This study aims to understand the role of international law in the conservation of large carnivores and will ...
"One for all, all for one in the fight against poverty?" The role of international law in the collective provision of global public goods in the field of development KU Leuven
Since the landmark book Governing the Commons by Nobel Prize winner Elinor Ostrom (1990), the commons represent an alternative governance model to share resources among communities beyond the logics of market and state. Yet, it is too often overlooked that millions of people, mostly living in developing countries, have in fact been depending on commons such as forests, pastures, grazing lands and fisheries to meet their basic needs for far ...
The status and legal consequences under international law of odious foreign investment contracts in the context of political transitions KU Leuven
Strongly criticised peace operations in Rwanda and former Yugoslavia caused a change of course within the United Nations (UN). It was agreed both inside and outside the organisation that peace forces should no longer be deployed in conflict situations where peace could not be achieved without having the necessary robust mandate and military resources. At the turn of the century, the UN Security Council therefore introduced a new type of ...
International organizations and EU data protection law: what limits to the extraterritorial effect of EU law? Ghent University
In the course of the last decade, the EU legal framework governing the processing of personal data has undergone a reform resulting in the adoption of the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) and Directive 2016/680 (“Law Enforcement Directive”) that became applicable across the EU in May 2018. While non-EU private parties and third countries have fallen within the extensive territorial reach of the EU data protection rules already ...
The duty of non-recognition revisited: exploring the option of introducing a positive due diligence obligation upon states to regulate private business activities in occupied territories Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Restitution of private property under the laws of war- and peace-making: the case of the Southern Netherlands (16th-18th centuries) KU Leuven
Confiscation of enemy private property formed an inherent and significant part of warfare among Christian sovereigns in early modern Europe. By the seventeenth century, the restitution of confiscated property, with the exemption of movables, became a fixture in peace settlements and an important subject of discussion and contention in the context of the implementation of peace treaties. This project proposes to analyse the legal regulations ...