Past Events

Panel Discussion: Social Rights and Access to Justice in the Netherlands [12 June 2025, Radboud University]

Members of the working group on Economic, Social & Cultural rights got together for the first time at the 2025 Toogdag, the NNHRR's Annual Conference. The working group was founded earlier in the 2024-2025 academic year. Several experts spoke about social rights and access to justice in the Netherlands. Three speakers highlighted different aspects of access to justice through a social rights lens. Dr. Nathalie Schnabl (Open University), one of the working group coordinators, spoke about the barriers and safeguards with respect to access to justice and the rule of law. She highlighted how access to justice requires knowledge, skills, a social network and financial means. Without those means, individuals will have difficulty accessing justice. Dr. Jolanda Andela (policy advior at the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights) spoke about the work of the Netherlands institute for Human rights. A particular focus of the Institute is housing and the protection against poverty. She discussed how the Dutch population is increasingly concerned about poverty, housing and climate change. The childcare benefits scandal in particular demonstrates the importance of improved access to justice; the justiciability of economic, social and cultural rights would be an important step in that direction. Prof. Gijsbert Vonk (Groningen University) discussed the project: “Reform of the Dutch constitution: a blueprint for social rights”. Under prof. Vonk’s lead, a group of scholars are proposing a concrete reform of the Dutch constitution. The proposal consists, among other things, of the introduction of judicial review against the constitution and the strengthening of the social rights in the constitution, going from a programmatic model to an individual rights approach. The panel was chaired by mr. Lucas Dikkers (Radboud University).