Toegangseisen
Voorlopig toegelaten eerstejaars studenten tot Honours College Law die de zogenoemde 'Oriëntatiefase' volgen. Dit is een programma van in totaal 10 bijeenkomsten.
Oriëntatiefase
Dit programma bevat:
een introductiebijeenkomst;
twee workshops;
het volgen van 1 van de 2 verbredende/verdiepende vakken;
een Afsluitende bijeenkomst.
De Oriëntatiefase loopt van maart tot half juni (NB: in tentamenweken vinden geen bijeenkomsten plaats).
Nadere informatie volgt op de Brightspace-pagina van (het voorlopig) Cohort 25-26.
Beschrijving
The relationship between law and justice raises fundamental questions: must a law be just to be valid? To what extent should lawyers concern themselves with justice, and how can we determine whether something is just?
This introductory course will help you understand legal systems and the concept of justice from multiple perspectives: philosophical, sociological, and legal. We begin with political philosophers such as Plato and John Rawls, who attempted to determine what kind of social and legal order could lead to a perfectly just society. We then explore an alternative approach through Amartya Sen's work, which starts from injustice and asks how the legal system can be designed to reduce it. This raises important questions: Can law be so unjust that it ceases to be law? After World War II, for instance, Nazi perpetrators claimed they acted lawfully -should they still be convicted?
Beyond these foundational questions, we examine the concept of access to justice -not just locally, but globally. How do different legal systems provide (or fail to provide) meaningful access to justice for all members of society? How do people perceive justice, particularly in post-conflict societies?
We will explore these questions through concrete examples from Bosnia, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, India, and various countries in Africa, examining both formal and informal justice mechanisms. Through this process, we give a global dimension to the idea of justice, understanding how it manifests differently across diverse legal, cultural, and socio-economic contexts.
Leerdoelen
By the end of the course students will be able to:
Understand the complexity of the concept of justice.
Reflect critically on the question to what extent the law meets the requirements of justice.
Analyze the factors that contribute to the complex relationship between law and justice in dif-ferent countries and historical time periods.
Apply legal and social justice concepts to real-world contexts, i.e. identify how law and social (in)justice manifest in public spaces and everyday life.
Critically engage with academic literature and other sources of information, comparing diffe-rent perspectives and assessing their credibility and persuasiveness.
Onderwijsvormen
The course consists of six sessions. In preparation, students will read articles and/or watch a video based on questions posted on Brightspace. Each class is interactive, and students are expected to engage actively in discussions.
Periode
Blok 4, on Tuesdays from 14 April 2026 - 19 May 2026. Time: 17:00 to 19:00 hrs
NB: Class for 5 May will be on 6 May 2026 at 17:00.
Toetsing
Students have the option to choose between an essay and an unessay for their assignments. Rather than receiving final grades, their assignments will be evaluated on a pass/fail basis. Additional information will be provided throughout the course.
Programma en literatuur
Session 1: Philosophical approaches to justice
14 April 2026, KOG
What is justice? We start our seminar by exploring the philosophical foundations of this concept. Cutting across these themes and theoretical perspectives, three broad approaches to justice emerge, which reflect distinct schools of moral and political thought: egalitarianism, utilitarianism, and libertarianism. The aim of this session is to offer ways to orient our theoretical and practical engagement with justice.
Reading material
Sen, Amartya. 2009. "Introduction: An approach to Justice." In The Idea of Justice. Cambridge, Harvard University Press: 5-24.
Gray, J.W. 2011. “Three theories of justice.” Ethical realism, April 26, 2011, [16 pages]. Available at http://ethicalrealism.wordpress.com/2011/04/26/three-theories-of-justice/
**Session 2: Law and (in)justice? **
21 April 2026, KOG
The concepts of law and justice are closely linked, but they are also at odds with each other. A well-known example is that after World War II, perpetrators of Nazi crimes invoked the law that was in force when they committed their crimes: according to that law, their actions would not have been punishable. In fact, the defendants claimed that they had acted in accordance with their legal obligations. Can they still be convicted, and on what basis?
This problem is the subject of the first article, “Statutory Lawlessness and Statutory Law,” by the German criminal lawyer and legal philosopher Gustav Radbruch. He discusses various cases that came before German courts shortly after the war and how those judges dealt with them.
The second article, also by Radbruch, is entitled “Five Minutes of Legal Philosophy” and deals with the question of whether you can still call a law that is clearly unjust a law.
Reading material
Radbruch, Gustav. 2006. “Statutory lawlessness and supra-statutory law (1946).” Oxford Jour-nal of Legal Studies 26 (1): 1-11. Please note that this document is included in “Five minutes of legal philosophy.”
Radbruch, Gustav. 2006. “Five minutes of legal philosophy.” Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 26 (1): 13-15.
Session 3: Case study of Bosnia: Perceptions of justice
28 April 2026, KOG
Justice after a conflict is often associated with the prosecution of war criminals. But is this also the meaning that survivors of a war themselves attribute to justice? In this lecture, we will first consider this question on the basis of a documentary. We will then examine another issue surrounding justice. In 1993, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was established to prosecute individuals suspected of violating international humanitarian law. The idea was to hold perpetrators personally responsible for their actions. But do members of the ethnic groups to which the perpetrators belong actually see this as individual justice, or is it seen as a form of collective punishment? Understanding both questions is crucial for building a post-conflict society in which law and justice contribute to recovery and reconciliation.
Reading material
Hasanovic, Ado and Nadia Sonneveld. 2023. "Searching for Justice." Documentary (24 minutes). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_MrTRMWvjs
Saxon, Dan. 2005. “Exporting justice: Perceptions of the ICTY among the Serbian, Croatian, and Muslim communities in the former Yugoslavia.” Journal of Human Rights 4 (4): 559-572. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14754830500332837
Weinstein, Harvey. M. and Eric Stover. 2004. “Introduction: conflict, justice and reclamation.” In My neighbor, my enemy: Justice and community in the aftermath of mass atrocity, edited by Erik Stover and Harvey. M. Weinstein. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1-26.
Suggested
- ICFY Documentary. 2017. Srebrenica Genocide: No Room for Denial, 1:03 hours. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sq77TySTst0&has_verified=1
Session 4: Factors accounting to Access to Justice
6 May 2026, KOG
This session examines the structural inequalities in legal systems through Marc Galanter's seminal framework distinguishing between "repeat players" and "one-shotters" in litigation. We examine how systemic advantages accrue to regular users of the legal system (“the haves”) compared to occasional users (“the have-nots”), focusing on the economic, informational, psychological, and institutional barriers that shape access to justice. Using examples, we show how factors such as disability, access to technology, and migration status further contribute to unequal access to justice.
Reading material
Galanter, Marc. 1974. “Why the "Haves" come out ahead: Speculations on the limits of legal change.” Law & Society Review 9 (1): 95-160.
Session 5: Alternative ways of accessing justice: Case study of India
12 May 2026, KOG
Alternative dispute resolution is commonly understood through familiar mechanisms such as arbitration, mediation, and negotiation, yet these formal ADR methods represent only a fraction of the dispute resolution landscape, particularly in societies with strong cultural and customary roots. Beyond these institutionalized forms exist numerous customary dispute mechanisms, informal dispute resolution processes, and specialized forums like small causes courts, some with legal backing and others operating entirely outside state recognition. This session examines such alternative methods through case studies from India, exploring how panchayats, tribal councils, and state-recognized mechanisms like Lok Adalats function within plural legal orders. For Dutch law students, this material offers critical relevance: it provides comparative insights into legal pluralism that inform work with migrant communities and transnational legal practice. It also challenges Eurocentric assumptions about rule of law and state authority, and offers frameworks for understanding access to justice that translate across contexts.
Reading material
Vatuk, Sylvia. 2013. “The “women’s court” in India: An alternative dispute resolution body for women in distress.” The Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law 45 (1): 76–103. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07329113.2013.774836
Galanter, Marc. 1981. "Justice in many rooms: Courts, private ordering, and indigenous law." The Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law 13(19): 1-47. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07329113.1981.10756257
Session 6: Global inequality in light of climate inequality
19 May 2026, KOG
Should and can the law address global inequalities in the context of climate justice? Building on our earlier examination of local dispute resolution mechanisms in India, this session shifts scale from the local to the global, exploring how questions of legitimacy, power, and access to justice manifest at the international level. Just as we examined how customary forums operate alongside state law locally, we now consider how multiple normative orders interact in addressing transnational harms like climate change. Through the lens of global cosmopolitanism, we look at if law can impose obligations on countries to support the less privileged in battling climate-induced inequality? The Dutch government's constitutional responsibility toward Caribbean territories provides a concrete lens: rising sea levels threaten these territories' existence, while the Netherlands as a historical emitter bears legal and moral responsibilities. Thereafter we evaluate existing legal principles such as common but differentiated responsibilities as ways to address these inequalities. We also look at litigation strategies, such as Urgenda and the ICJ advisory opinion.
Reading material
Rajamani, L. 2016. “The 2015 Paris Agreement: Interplay between hard, soft and non-obligations.” Journal of Environmental Law (28): 337-358.
https://doi.org/10.1093/jel/eqw015Thomas, A. 2019. “Adaptation planning in Caribbean Small Island Developing States: A literature review.” In Dealing with climate change on small islands: Towards effective and sustainable adaptation?, edited by Klöck, C. & Fink, M. Göttingen, Göttingen University Press: 123–140. https://doi.org/10.17875/gup2019-1214
Brightspace
Brightspace will be used.
Contact
In case of absence, or when you have (other) organizational questions, please contact Honours College Law via honours@law.leidenuniv.nl.
**Course coordinators: **
Nadia Sonneveld (n.sonneveld@law.leidenuniv.nl)
Rhea Mammen (r.r.mammen@law.leidenuniv.nl)