Esmée Driessen is legal advisor at the College van Beroep voor het bedrijfsleven (CBb), associated with the Thorbecke Chair as Thorbecke Fellow and guest lecturer at Leiden University.

More information about Esmée Driessen

General

Esmée Driessen is legal advisor to the Board of Business Appeals (CBb), associated with the Thorbeck Chair as Thorbecke Fellow and guest lecturer at Leiden University.

After completing her dissertation, Esmée worked successively at the Advisory Division of the Council of State and the Council for Public Administration (ROB).

Research

In her dissertation, Esmée focuses on the phenomenon of Right to Challenge or challenge law. This is a form of citizen participation in which initiators perform tasks in the public domain because they attach a social value to them. Examples include guiding people with a distance to the labor market into paid work (neighborhood businesses), the establishment of care cooperatives so that local residents can grow old vitally and in a familiar environment, or taking over and managing functions such as neighborhood green space maintenance, community centers, playgrounds, etc.

In setting up and implementing these initiatives, initiators almost always come into contact with the government. Governments are often enthusiastic about the plans that initiators present to them, yet getting the initiative off the ground proves far from easy for both government and initiators. A common bottleneck is that “the law” stands in the way of initiators and governments. In her dissertation, Esmée focuses on a number of areas of law that initiators and governments feel restrictive. In doing so, she examines what the relevant bottleneck entails, how the law accommodates this bottleneck and whether this legal solution is also a solution in the reality of citizens' initiatives and the governments facilitating them. She then investigates and formulates recommendations that can help governments and initiators move forward.

Additional activities

- Member referendum committee Amsterdam
- Member of the program committee National Science Agenda (NWA)