Gamechangers Erasmus School of Law

Piet Sanders (1912-2012)

There are few Dutch people with the impressive record of Piet Sanders. For us, he was first and foremost the founder of our Rotterdam School in 1963. Sanders was a leading scholar in corporate and arbitration law. With his inaugural lecture Naar een Europese naamloze vennootschap , he was the spiritual father of the European public limited company, which would see the light of day almost 50 (!) years later. In arbitration law, Sanders was one of the drafters of the New York Convention and co-drafted the influential UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules of the United Nations.

But Sanders was much more than a scholar. After World War II, during which he was a prisoner in the Sint-Michielsgestel hostage camp, he became Secretary-General of the Indonesia General Commission under Prime Minister Schermerhorn. He sought peaceful independence for the colony and resigned when the Netherlands launched the police actions. Sanders and his wife Ida were prominent art collectors. The couple supported many up-and-coming artists who later grew into artists of world renown, such as Karel Appel, Jacques Lipchitz and Joel Shapiro. Sanders remained involved in the ups and downs of Erasmus School of Law until his death at the age of 100. Our building and library proudly bear his name.

Jack ter Heide (1923-1988)

Jack ter Heide was Professor of Introduction to Law from 1970 to 1988. He developed an original legal theory perspective, the ‘functional legal theory’, with which he challenged the established order in the legal world. In his view, law was strongly linked to social sciences. This as an alternative to the classical natural law theories and legal positivism. Ter Heide’s modern legal professional was a multidisciplinary, analytical legal scientist. His idiosyncratic views, advocated among others in his inaugural lecture on the independence of the judiciary and the groundbreaking article Iudex Viator, caused a stir inside and outside our School. The conflicts are masterfully described in the book Als juristen twisten (Schaap and Scheltes, 1988).

Ter Heide was a gifted teacher. Former students still remember his lectures based on newspaper clippings (the res cottidianae). His ideas were part of the basis of the ZKK (independent, creative, critical) education, based on skills and interdisciplinarity, which characterised our School in the 70s and 80s and whose impact can still be felt today. Ter Heide died while working at our School.

Louk Hulsman (1923-2009)

Perhaps the most striking Professor Erasmus School of Law ever had was Louk Hulsman. He was famous and reviled for his vision: abolitionism. As Professor of Criminal Law, Criminal Procedural Law and Criminology, he wanted to completely reform criminal law, which he saw as inhumane and ineffective. Hulsman co-founded the Coornhert Liga in 1971 and chaired the committee that issued the report Ruime in het drugbeleid in the same year. We owe the relatively liberal drug policy that characterises our country to Hulsman and his followers. Even opponents of his vision praised him as a brilliant, resourceful, and incredibly driven thinker.

During his time as Dean (XNUMX to XNUMX), the pioneering PXNUMX curriculum, based on interdisciplinarity (especially with social sciences), was introduced. It was supposed to train students to become critical thinkers and responsible legal professionals. Hulsman also literally looked across borders. He dedicated himself to the internationalisation of education and, in XNUMX, co-founded the Common Study Programme in Criminal Justice and Critical Criminology for Master’s students, one of the first ERASMUS programmes of the EU, then called EEC. As a scholar and an inspiration to many colleagues, Hulsman has been of great significance.

Cyrille Fijnaut (1946)

Cyrille Fijnaut is considered one of the most prominent Criminologists in the Netherlands, praised for his encyclopaedic knowledge of criminology and law. He worked for our School from 1986 to 1989. Criminology was hardly seen as a fully formed discipline in those years, but with the appointment of some solid empirical researchers, Fijnaut brought more balance to the Department of Criminal Law. He also delivered PhD candidates who would greatly benefit our School, such as Jolande uit Beijerse, Elly Rood, René van Swaaningen, Ben Rovers and Hans Moerland.

Besides his academic work, Fijnaut was known as a constructor of the Van Traa committee, which in the 90s carried out the research Parlementaire enquête opsporingsmethoden into investigative methods of the police in the fight against organised crime. Fijnaut chose Criminologists from the academic world as his committee members rather than ‘traditional’ researchers from the Ministry of Justice and Security. Perhaps unintentionally, but certainly not undesirably. With this action, he put academic research and teaching in the field of criminology definitively on the map. Erasmus School of Law also launched a fully-fledged Criminology programme at the beginning of this century.

Henk van Arendonk (1948)

Henk van Arendonk was still in the middle of his dissertation when he was asked to set up a tax law programme in the late 80s. He stepped up, obtained his doctoral degree on 6 December 1991 and was appointed Professor of Tax Law on 1 January 1992. Meanwhile, the academic staff had been expanded and the first students had started in September 1991. It earned Van Arendonk the unofficial honorary title of ‘fiscal builder’. Together with colleagues, Van Arendonk is, after the Jan Christiaanse period, the man who put Tax Law at Erasmus School of Law on the map.

Van Arendonk, the Professor with the bow tie, was a researcher through and through and a true generalist. With Leo Stevens, responsible for the Fiscal Economics programme in Rotterdam, he set up the successful postgraduate course in European tax law for direct taxation. To this end, the Stichting Europese Fiscale Studies (EFS) was set up at a time when European tax law was still in its infancy. Under the wings of EFS, the Customs course and the journal EC Tax Review also saw the light of day. Van Arendonk turned down offers from the political world but was a member of two important The Hague committees: the Oort Committee (100-1985) and the Van Weeghel Committee (1986).

Hans de Doelder (1949)

Hans de Doelder was Professor of Criminal Law and Criminal Procedural Law from XNUMX until his retirement in XNUMX. An eminent academic with a record number of publications and PhD candidates, he earned his stripes mainly as Dean (XNUMX-XNUMX). De Doelder connected our School with the outside world. Partnerships were formed with renowned universities in the growing East Asian market. Our School also established relations with South Africa, EU countries and the former colonies. It earned De Doelder the nickname 'The Flying Dean’. European law was given a more prominent place in education. Staff, curriculum and students alike became more international.

The establishment of local networks such as the Stichting Juridische Samenwerking aan de Maas and the Erasmus Center for Penal Studies embedded our School in professional practice and the society of Rotterdam. Under Den Doelder, the undergraduate-masters structure was introduced, and Erasmus School of Law survived difficult processes such as the Modernisation of Support Services and the Modernisation of University Management Act, which reorganised the university’s structure. He also dealt decisively with budget cuts and declining student numbers. He modernised teaching with more individual attention for the student and bundled research into stable, substantively strong programmes. It is clear that under De Doelder, the contours of the present Erasmus School of Law were formed.

Suzan Stoter (1970)

Suzan Stoter was Professor of Sociology of Law, Dean of Education and, from 2012 to 2021, Dean of Erasmus School of Law. Stoter was an academic who aspired to close the gap between the theoretical approach and the social functioning of law. This aspiration resulted, among other things, in the Center for Law and Innovation, in cooperation with TU Delft. As Dean of Education, she initiated the Erasmus Law College, which forms the basis of our current education.

She did not shy away from a challenge as leader of the transformation to The Academy of the Future. Together with Vice Dean Fabian Amtenbrink, she gave research a deepening impetus. Where Law Meets Business became the slogan. Stoter, just as building Dean Piet Sanders, saw art and law as two peas in a pod: creative and innovative. This was materialised in the extraordinary metamorphosis of the L Building into the art-filled Sanders Building.

“Mijn toko”

Ja, Raymond zit wel op zijn plek, zo in zijn “eigen stad”. “Maar”, begint hij met een knipoog, “ze mogen wel wat platter praten hier. De campus mag wat dat betreft best wat Rotterdamser.” Maar of dat zou werken in de rechtszaal, betwijfelt hij. “Hallo rechtert! Deze man is hartstikke onschuldig! Nee, toch maar niet”, grinnikt hij nee-schuddend. “Ik vind het juist ook mooi dat hier zo veel verschillende mensen en talen samenkomen. Dit, Rotterdam, is daar dé plek voor. Zo lang het maar gezellig is.”

Aan het begin van de dag weet Raymond nooit hoe zijn werkdag eruit zal zien. “Dat vind ik ook wel leuk; elke dag is anders.” Wat hij echter wel weet, is dat hij hier nog wel een tijdje zit. “Het is toch mijn toko, mijn dingetje, en dus mijn ‘zaak’ om het hier draaiende te houden.” Rond half 4 brengt hij zijn werkdag meestal tot een einde. “Die laat ik dan ook echt achter me. We zien vanzelf weer wat er de volgende dag gebeurt.” Het is inmiddels kwart over 3 en terwijl Raymond zijn spullen langzaam opruimt, nodigt hij me uit om nog eens te komen kletsen. “Maar, dan doen we dat met een stuk appeltaart van Koekela of Dudok”, suggereert hij. De deur staat altijd open…