Rebalancing Public & Private Interests

Sanders Building

Rebalancing Public & Private Interests is a cross-disciplinary research centre of Erasmus School of Law. We study the interaction between public and private interests and public and private actors in the context of contemporary societal challenges like globalisation, digitisation and privatisation and crises like those of the environment and public health. This research centre is a cooperation between scholars of Erasmus School of Law and the Faculty of Law of the University of Groningen. In our joint website on the Public and Private Challenge you can find information on our future events, the team, and research and impact. We also cooperate with the Erasmus Center of Empirical Legal Studies, funded by the same sector plan.

Law is part and partial to society and is constantly in development because of social, economic, and political changes. Developments like globalisation, digitisation and privatisation and crises like those of the environment, financial system, and public health require that the legal system and legal interests are re-evaluated and recalibrated. A well-functioning legal system is essential for the prosperity and wellbeing of citizens and requires strong faculties of law with excellent scholars equipped to deal with societal challenges. The legal discipline of the 21st century is also repositioning itself within the academic environment and in its relationship to other disciplines. Mindful of these societal and academic developments, the Dutch  Sectorplan for Law 2019-2024 (in Dutch) and facilitates the repositioning of law in society with cross-faculty partnerships along four thematic and one methodological research line:

  • Digital legal studies
  • Conflict resolving institutions.
  • Transformative functioning of globalization in law
  • Rebalancing of public interests in private relationships
  • Empirical legal studies

Erasmus School of Law participates in the latter two.

Empirical Legal Studies focuses on the ways in which doctrinal legal research can be supplemented by qualitative and quantitative empirical legal research. Empirically grounded studies are essential to the development of legal frameworks in response to emerging societal challenges. This focuses on the normative assumptions that lie at the basis of laws, on the way in which normative legal frameworks are translated to policy implementation and on how that implementation affects society and in turn influences legal developments (Sectorplan Rechtsgeleerdheid, 2018, p. 65). ELS also connects legal scholars with other disciplines. ECELS at EUR Erasmus Centre of Empirical Legal Studies (ECELS.

Rebalancing Public & Private Interests aims to make an innovative contribution with research on the role of law in its economic and social context. This cross-disciplinary research initiative focuses on the interaction between public and private interests in governance systems, which we summarize as ‘the public-private challenge’. More specifically this addresses questions about how public interests can be safeguarded by private actors, within private relationships and within public-private partnerships, and on the interaction between the emergence of public and private interests in relation to contemporary societal challenges such as globalization, digitization and privatization and crises like those of the environment and public health.

News

Gendered dynamics of environmental crime

On Wednesday 21 September 2022, the seminar “Environmental Crime & Gender” took place in Malaga, Spain.
Lieselot Bisschop

Second Sector Plan PhD Day

PhD researchers from the “Rebalancing Public & Private Interests” and “Empirical Legal Studies” research lines from the Dutch Sector Plan for Law of Erasmus Sch
studying

SUMMER ACADEMY Law and Political Economy in Europe Erasmus University Rotterdam 27-29th June 2023

The Law and Political Economy (LPE) in Europe Network invites applications for its first Summer Academy, which will be held at Erasmus University Rotterdam,

Call for papers ‘Digital Technologies, Public Policy and Competition Law’

On 1 and 2 June 2023, the “Digital Technologies, Public Policy, and Competition Law” conference will be held in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, in the framework of

Workshop “Populism, Non-State Actors and Legal Mobilization in Europe”

On the 22 of March 2023, the workshop “Populism, Non-State Actors and Legal Mobilization in Europe” will be organized.

Workshop “Constitutionalism and Political Economy. New Trajectories and Opportunities for Socio-Legal Scholarship”

On 22 and 23 June 2023 the workshop “Constitutionalism and Political Economy. New Trajectories and Opportunities for Socio-Legal Scholarship” will be organized.
Rotterdam Maastoren Erasmus Bridge

Dr. Ioannis Kampourakis, awarded grant by Partners for a New Economy

Dr Ioannis Kampourakis, assistant professor at Erasmus School of Law, and Dr Anna Chadwick (University of Glasgow) were awarded a grant of €193,000 by Partners
Ioannis Kampourakis

Law, AI, and Regulation (LAIR) Conference

We are pleased to announce an international academic conference on law, AI, and regulation.
News conferece law ai and regulation

Conference: The Law and Political Economy of Business and Human Rights. A Turn to Root Causes?

Last 10 and 11 November, Erasmus School of Law and the Faculty of Law of the University of Groningen hosted a conference on the Law and Political Economy (LPE)
Rotterdam

Conference “The Public-Private Challenge: Innovating Legal and Regulatory Paradigms”

On 22 and 23 September 2022, Erasmus School of Law and the Faculty of Law of the University of Groningen hosted a conference about the Public-Private Challenge.
Rotterdam

Events

Workshop Between Autocratic Legalism and Right-Wing Legal Mobilization.

Workshop on the transformative dimension of populism from different perspectives.
Erasmus School of Law

Conference “Law, Regulation and Technology: Healthy, Safe, and Sustainable Smart Cities”

The ESL invites submissions for the new Conference “Law, Regulation and Technology: Healthy, Sustainable, and Safe Smart Cities” to be held on 26-27 June 2024.
Erasmus School of Law

Special Workshop: Theorizing Protest and Legal Mobilization

31st World Congress of the International Association for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy.
Erasmus School of Law

The digital and green transitions: twins in tension

Digitalisation and climate change have sparked, on their own, two enormously disruptive processes: the digital and the green transitions, often referred to as
Erasmus School of Law

Events archive

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