Supervising is great! With rare exceptions, I truly enjoy assisting students in developing research skills, discovering their own voice, and ultimately completing their (often first) major project. It also provides an opportunity to learn about subjects I previously knew little to nothing about, whether that’s the situation of the Sami people in Sweden, Qatar’s kafala system, or the Maritime Labour Convention.

Ph.D. supervision

As the Senior Researcher at Cities of Refuge research, I had the chance to oversee three Ph.D. projects, in collaboration with the project leader, Barbara Oomen. Working with Elif, Sara, and Tiho, three exceptionally committed and talented researchers who required minimal “supervision” (if we can even use that term), was a rewarding experience from which I learned a lot.

I’m not seeking any credit – their work speaks for itself. Instead, I simply recommend clicking on the provided links, which will direct you to the UU repository websites for more information:

Sara Miellet, “Unmoored, not Adrift: Local perspectives on the politics of human rights and forced migration” (Utrecht University, December 2022)

Elif Durmuş, “Breaking Free: Local governments’ boundary-defying engagement with human rights and migration” (Utrecht University, October 2022)

Tihomir Sabchev, “Local authorities, human rights and the reception and integration of forced migrants in Greece and Italy“ (Utrecht University, December 2021)

Moot court competitions

One of my pet projects in recent years has been to integrate moot court competitions into the UCR curriculum. This initiative began in 2018 with a moot court exercise in a human rights course and subsequently evolved into a regular extracurricular activity, where two UCR students participate in the Nelson Mandela World Human Rights Moot Court Competition (see a recent report, in Dutch, on the United Nations website). Our first ventures into moot court competitions were made with the help of co-coaches Elif Durmuş and Elikem Azumah.

Since 2021, I have supervised four UCR students per year as they complete their senior projects (the equivalent of a thesis) by participating in the Philip Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition, which is the largest in the world. Earning regular credits for their participation allows the students to dedicate the necessary time to researching complex questions of international law, carefully craft their memorials, and hone their pleading skills. In addition, students prepare a reflection on their performance during the national rounds and a research paper that is (ideally) related to one of the topics covered in the Jessup problem.

UCR is currently the only Dutch liberal arts college participating in the Jessup competition. In fact, the other teams consist mostly of LLM students, which means that our UCR undergraduates are competing against postgraduate students. However, hard work can compensate for the lack of experience: in the Dutch national rounds in 2024, UCR won the awards for the best applicant memorial and overall memorial (shared with the University of Amsterdam). Adapting moot court training to the profile of interdisciplinary liberal arts students has been as fun as it is challenging. I am convinced that, ultimately, even winning the competition is within reach.

The next cohort of UCR students is already lined up to participate in “the Jessup.” UCR now also sends a team to the PAX Private International Law Moot Court, supervised by my colleague Dr. Jason Dinse.

Student theses

And then there are the “regular” Bachelor’s and Master’s theses. The key to their success lies in having students formulate their own research problem and question based on genuine interests, thereby creating intrinsic motivation for the project as a whole. While this initial stage can take quite a while under my supervision, it has yielded results time and again.

This is a list of the theses that students have completed under my supervision:

“Policing fear: The human rights implications of Texas’ sanctuary city ban” (UCR, 2024)

“Big Tech vs individual privacy rights: Dirigism and legal innovation in the DMA and DSA” (UCR, 2024)

“Reconstructing justice: The interplay of memory and grassroots movements in Colombia’s peace process” (UCR, 2024)

“The right to education for Colombian nationals and Venezuelan refugees” (UCR, 2024)

“Unveiling voices: The importance of student initiatives on decolonisation. A case study at University College Roosevelt” (UCR, 2024)

“This cannot be legal, or can it? The legality of Extinction Rebellion Netherlands” (UCR, 2024)

“‘Dalit-ing’ identities: Contemporary conceptualisations of caste in India. A socio-legal exploration” (UCR, 2024)

“Re-entry and reintegration: A comparison of ex-offenders’ experiences in Texas and the Netherlands” (UCR, 2023)

“Sami people’s human rights: An exploration of the compliance of Sweden’s policies towards the Sami people” (Jonah Lindroos Nowell, University College Utrecht, 2023)

“Protecting the cultural rights of migrant children in the Netherlands” (University College Utrecht, 2023)

“Human rights and post-colonial conflict: The SADC tribunal’s role” (UCR, 2023)

“Middelburg, a human rights city? A local actors’ perspective” (UCR, 2023)

“Protecting environmentally displaced persons in an incomplete international system” (LLM, Utrecht University, 2022)

“The credibility assessment of LGBT refugees in the Netherlands: a cross-sectoral comparison” (UCR, 2021)

“Berlin and Potsdam as ‘Safe Harbours’: On their motivation and divergence from domestic law” (Franziska Pett, UCR, 2020 – later turned into a co-authored book chapter, see Books)

“Scaling up humanitarian corridors in the European Union: Exploring the role of local governments” (Nena van der Kammen, Legal Research Master, Utrecht University, 2020)

“The healthcare system for undocumented migrants in Spain” (UCR, 2020)

“Quantitative content analysis and framing of migration policy amongst local authorities in the Netherlands” (UCR, 2019)

“The international human rights regime: South Africa’s glass menagerie” (Legal Research Master, Utrecht University, 2019)

“Seafarers’ labour rights: Analyzing the effectiveness of the Maritime Labour Convention” (UCR, 2019)

“A legal analysis on Qatar’s kafala system in protecting domestic workers” (UCR, 2019)

“‘For’, ‘With’, and ‘About’: A typology of citizen-led integration initiatives in Berlin” (UCR, 2019)

“Trafficking as a detrimental consequence of migration on women’s rights in Austria” (LLM, Tilburg University, 2017)

“After the EU-Turkey Agreement: The impact on Greek regulation as well as the living conditions of detained asylum seekers on Greek islands” (LLM, Tilburg University, 2017)

“Violence and the level of torture: The Mexican war on drugs” (Tilburg University, 2017)

(If one of the theses is yours, you can always write me an email requesting that I add your name. I just do not want to do this without prior consent.)