Projects
Governance as Responsibility: Member State Participation in International Financial Institutions and the Quest for Effective Human Rights Protection. KU Leuven
The law of international responsibility, as currently devised, does not offer a consistent analytical framework to assess member State participation in International Organisations. Inescapably, this state of affairs runs counter to an effective human rights protection and hampers individual attempts to obtain reparation for damage, or the risk thereof, caused by wrongdoing member States.
Using International Financial ...
Member states liability for internationally wrongful acts of international organizations. KU Leuven
Application of the Separation of Authority in the Public Administration System of EU Member States: Lessons for Ukraine KU Leuven
The separation of powers is crucial for democracy because it ensures the necessary degree of independence for the branches of authority and the impartiality of the decision-making process in government. Each state has its peculiarities in the division of responsibilities that often lead to conflicts because each branch tries to maximize its influence on the system; therefore, returning to the theory is crucial for a deeper understanding of ...
Re-conceptualizing the State-Centric Human Rights Regime: Relational Human Rights Responsibility for EU Cooperative Governance Ghent University
Increasingly, cooperative governance – characterized by indivisible cooperation between private and public actors – detrimentally affect our human rights. Consider the recent examples of Borealis and BASF concerning human trafficking in Belgium, implicating the respective companies, as well as governmental authorities. Consider also, problematic use of privately procured artificial intelligence by the EU and its Member States. Scholarship to ...
Representations of Responsibility in Japanese Culture KU Leuven
I would like to investigate “representations of responsibility in Japanese culture”. In other words, how issues of responsibility have emerged and mattered in Japanese culture; what are the conditions for responsibility; what are crucial elements for responsibility to arise; where or who is the place of responsibility in societies, companies, or groups; how to take responsibility, to put it differently, what kind of actions would be expected ...
The European Union and Party Autonomy in Private International Family Law KU Leuven
A paradigm shift, from State control to self-determination of individuals, is currently occurring within our society. Not so long ago, divorces, same-sex marriages, registered partnerships, birth control or in vitro fertilization were hardly conceivable whereas it is now accessible, or at least debated, in most European countries. This has been largely influenced by the fact that citizens request more liberty to arbitrate their own existence ...
Spatial Data Infrastructure Perspective to Facilitate Emergency Mapping Team Operations in the Caribbean Small Island Developing States KU Leuven
Many Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are located on one of the most disaster-prone regions of the world. In terms of the intensity, frequency and increasing impact of natural and environmental disasters, SIDS are identified among the most vulnerable regions in the world (Boto and Biasca 2012). They frequently face extreme weather events such as hurricanes and cyclones, resulting in high cost damages to socio-economic infrastructure and ...
Social profit companies in the European Union: towards a theoretical framework and adequate regulation KU Leuven
The past quarter century has seen an increased demand for socially and environmentally responsible entrepreneurship by investors, consumers, business partners and employees. Member states’ legislators have responded by adopting specific social profit statutes for companies with (an)other main purpose(s) than or besides profit maximization. Despite a recent call for regulatory intervention by the European Parliament, the European Union has not ...
Socially Responsible Public Procurement: The Cuckoo in the Internal Market Nest? KU Leuven
With a strongly developed internal market but a lacking social strategy, the EU has reached an important crossroads. Should the EU start investing in a conclusive social policy, or, should the cobbler stick to its last? In the literature, it has been suggested that now is the time for a ‘European Social Union’. I believe that one of the ways to achieve this, is to use a tool that is readily available and that the EU and its Member States are ...