Dr. Ingrid Leijten LLM MA - Associate Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law
My name is Ingrid Leijten. I am an associate professor at the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law at Leiden University. I specialize in fundamental rights protection at the national, European and international level. Fascinated by the ever-intriguing role of rights in relation to the work of different governmental powers, I investigate the internationalization and constitutionalization of public law.
I am the author of Core Socio-Economic Rights and the European Court of Human Rights (Cambridge Studies in European Law and Policy; Cambridge University Press, 2018). In this monograph, I discuss the protection of social rights under the ECHR. The work includes a comparative study of (minimum) core fundamental rights doctrines at the constitutional and international level and deals with the (subsidiary) role and task of the European Court of Human Rights in regard to, e.g., the protection of social security and environmental protection. Together with Toomas Kotkas and Frans Pennings, I recently edited an interdisciplinary volume titled Specifying and Securing a Social Minimum in the Battle against Poverty, which was published with Hart Publishing in 2019.
I have published extensively on fundamental rights interpretation, the constitutionalization of public law and social security as a matter of property rights. Other projects I currently work on deal with the state of the rechtsstaat and fundamental rights protection in the Netherlands; tailor made decision making and proportionality in the administration; fundamental rights based climate litigation; the culture of justification, and human rights overreach.
I teach and coordinate various courses in constitutional law and in European and international human rights law (LLB, LLM, and Advanced LLM level). In addition, I supervise BA and LLM theses on topics related to my research interests and am involved in various PhD projects. In 2019, I was a guest Professor at the Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen Nuremberg in Germany (Chair of Public Law and International Law).
Besides in the form of publications, I regularly present my work at (international) conferences and seminars, as well as to judges and government bodies. I am part of the editorial board of the Nederlands Tijdschrift voor de Mensenrechten (Dutch Journal of Human Rights), host of the podcast Ons goed recht and am a member of several constitutional law, administrative law, and human rights societies and networks, such as the Staatsrechtkring, ICON-S, the Netherlands Network for Human Rights Research and the Centre for Human Rights Erlangen-Nuremberg. In addition to my academic work, I am a deputy judge at the Rotterdam District Court.
Work experience
2021 -
Associate Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law, Leiden Law School
2015 - 2020
Assistant Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law, Leiden Law School
2019
Guest Professor of Public Law and International Law, Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg
2017 -
Deputy Judge Rotterdam District Court, Administrative Law Section
2011 - 2015
PhD Researcher and Junior Lecturer, Leiden Law School
2013 - 2015
Visiting Researcher Humboldt University in Berlin; Human Rights Centre of Ghent University; Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law Heidelberg
2010 - 2011
Research and Teaching Assistant, Leiden Law School
Education
2015
2010
2010
2009
2009
2008
2007
PhD in Law, Leiden University (supervisor Professor Janneke Gerards)
New York State Bar Exam
LLM Columbia Law School, New York (honours; Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar)
LLM Constitutional and Administrative Law, Leiden Law School (honours; cum laude)
MA Political Science, Leiden University (honours; cum laude)
LLB, Leiden Law School
BA Political Science, Leiden University
Teaching
2010 -
Principles of the democratic rechtsstaat (Dutch); Constitutional law (Dutch), Constitutional issues in a European context (Dutch); Comparative constitutional law (Dutch); Privatissimum international and European human rights law (English); Human rights conceptions in a pluralist world (English); Economic, social and cultural rights (English); International law (German); supervision of Bachelor and Master theses; (open to) PhD supervision; Master thesis seminar