Headlines

In the media and politics, there is rising attention to femicide — the murder of women, often by a partner or a former partner. Martina Althoff, associate professor of Criminology, welcomes this but is critical at the same time.

Dr Mark Beuker, Dr Hans ter Haar, Prof. Wilbert Kolkman, Prof. Leon Verstappen and Dr Irene Visser (Faculty of Law), together with Dr Marieke Haan and Dr Elianne Zijlstra (Faculty of Behavioral and Social Sciences) from the Notarial Institute of the University of Groningen, have published a WODC report on the 'Support for the Legitimate Portion'.

Cornelis de Boer, a master’s student at the University of Groningen, has received an honorable mention for the prestigious 2024 François Prize. This prize, awarded by the Royal Netherlands Society of International Law (KNVIR), is presented every two years for the best master’s thesis on public or private international law in the Netherlands.

Björn Hoops, professor of Private Law and Sustainability at the Faculty of Law, recently received a grant from the NWO SSH Open Competition XS program. Hoops received the grant for his research on private law obstacles to the flourishing of energy communities and other small-scale energy projects, titled ‘De-Scaling Private Law to Help Energy Communities Thrive’.

Marlies Hesselman (assistant professor of International Law) and Patricio Trincado (PhD candidate), both working in the Transboundary Legal Studies Department of our faculty, have received a YAG interdisciplinary grant. With the help of that grant, they are starting a collaboration with researchers from the Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB) and the University College Groningen (UCG).

Emil Verheul, associate professor at the Faculty of Law, recently received a grant from the NWO SGW Open Competitie XS program. Verheul received the grant for his research on ownership of digital assets, titled 'Ownership of digital assets - how future-proof is Dutch property law?'

Jonas Bornemann, assistant professor of European Law at our faculty, has been awarded the Re:constitution Fellowship. He will receive €15,000 from the fellowship to conduct research on migration in Berlin.

What can the courts do to increase the quality of dispute resolution in mining claim proceedings? That is the question that Prof. Heinrich Winter, Prof. Bert Marseille, Dr Marc Wever, Joachim Bekkering (LL.M.) (UG), Christian Boxum (LL.M.) (Pro Facto), Prof. Elbert de Jong (Utrecht University) and Dr Michiel Tjepkema (Open University) set out to answer. Together they examined satisfaction with the handling of earthquake cases by the District Court for the Northern Netherlands.

Can the taking of witness statements in criminal cases be automated using artificial intelligence (AI)? The University of Groningen (UG), Capgemini Netherlands and Scotty AI signed a letter of intent today to jointly research the development of an “AI witness interview assistant” that could potentially be used for this purpose in the future.

Pepijn Tukker and Tim van Zuijlen, both working in the IT Law section of our faculty, have been awarded a grant of 6,000 euros from the Interdisciplinary Projects Incentive Fund. They obtained the grant for a multidisciplinary AI research project for which they will collaborate with Dr Zoé Christoff, assistant professor of Cognitive Artificial Intelligence at the Faculty of Science and Engineering.

Since 1 April 2015, the Financial Supervision Act (Wft) has required banks to subject their employees to disciplinary law. Meanwhile, more than nine years have passed since the introduction of disciplinary law. The board of Stichting Tuchtrecht Banken (STB) therefore asked the University of Groningen and Pro Facto to evaluate disciplinary law. Dr Rianne Herregodts and Prof Heinrich Winter contributed to the project.

In the coming years, self-driving cars may increasingly become part of daily life. But who is liable if things go wrong?