The proceedings of the XXIX FIDE Congress in The Hague are published in four volumes. The first three volumes were published in 2020. This book (Vol. 4) contains the congress proceedings of the XXIXth FIDE congress that, after years of preparation and the disruption caused by COVID-19, could finally take place in The Hague.

In many countries regional and local authorities are given more powers in the field of social security. Supposedly, this is a general trend taking place throughout the developed world and beyond. In this volume the processes of devolution and decentralisation in social security are researched from a comparative European perspective, taking into account the constitutional setting and the architecture of the social security systems. The book includes thirteen country studies based on a uniform ...

The population of the Caribbean territories of the Dutch Kingdom – Aruba, Curaçao, Sint Maarten and Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba – can be described as a strongly “transmigrating population”. This means that both domestic and foreign legal practitioners are regularly confronted with a question that can only be answered with the help of the rules of private international law of the Caribbean territories. Identifying these rules is not an easy task: textbooks, journal articles and a...

Throughout Europe, students move from their home address to accommodation, whether temporary or not, near their university or college. The majority of European countries have experienced a sharp increase in the number of students in higher education in recent years and, consequently, in the number of students staying in student housing. At the same time there is a severe housing shortage in several countries, including sharply rising housing prices and rents in urban areas, where also the hig...

In this farewell speech on the occasion of his retirement as Professor of Comparative Constitutional Law at Maastricht University, given in March 2022, Aalt Willem Heringa discusses the too often ignored role of courts as interpreters of statutes. The courts, by checking the (constitutional) quality of statutes, contribute to the rule of law and parliamentary democracy.

Independent courts may add to the confidence in a constitutional and parliamentary system as a whole, by being in a position...

Inspired by the vision of the future of humankind in outer space, an international team of technical experts, lawyers and political scientists examined topical issues of law and policy under the leadership of the editors – not only with respect to international space flight and space exploration, but also in view of the safe and sustainable use of space technology for the benefit of our planet. After all, our original habitat should not be sacrificed on our way to Moon and Mars!

In this reg...

This volume contains the proceedings of the 63rd Colloquium on the Law of Outer Space held virtually in October 2020, as well as the report of the IISL Standing Committee on the Status of International Agreements Relating to Activities in Outer Space.