Jan-Peter Loof is assistant professor of constitutional and administrative law at the department of Constitutional and administrative law.

Curriculum vitae

Jan-Peter Loof studied constitutional and administrative law at Leiden University from 1984 until 1990 (LL.B and LL.M). In 1991 he started working as a junior researcher in human rights issues at the Department of International Law of the University of Amsterdam. Since 1995 he lectures constitutional and administrative law at the Institute for Public Law of Leiden University. He also is fellow of the E.M. Meijers Institute of Legal Research and the F.M. van Asbeck Centre of Human Rights Studies of this University.

Next to that he is member of the board of editors of Nederlands Tijdschrift voor de Mensenrechten/NJCM-Bulletin (the leading Dutch human rights law review) and of Militair Rechtelijk Tijdschrift (MRT; the Dutch military law review). In November 2005 he defended his Ph.D-thesis on human rights protection and state security (Human rights and state security: compatible entities? Limitation and derogation of human rights during states of emergency and other situations that threaten national security). For this study he received the Max van der Stoel-Human Rights Award 2006, a prize for the best Ph.D thesis in the field of human rights during the academic year 2005-2006. In 2011 an updated version of his thesis will be published in English by publishing house Intersentia. 

Field of research 

In recent years Jan-Peter Loof has published on several subjects in the field of human rights (mainly in Dutch), i.a.: legislation and human rights policy, the independence and impartiality of the judiciary and the reform of the Dutch legislation on the organization of the judiciary, the recognition of fundamental rights of animals and other living creatures, the right to property (Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 ECHR), the ECHR control mechanism, the freedom of speech, the prohibition of discrimination, the influence of the ECHR on Dutch constitutional and administrative law, the organization and intensity of the international human rights control in situations of crisis and the fight against terrorism and its consequences for (international) human rights protection. 

His current research focuses on:

• The human rights infrastructure in the process of legislation in the Netherlands and several other countries.
• The tension between human rights protection and rule of law on the one hand and the protection of (national) security and prevention of terrorism on the other hand.
• Derogation of human rights during times of war or other public emergency (and during military operations abroad).
• Human rights standards and the armed forces.
• The interaction between the European Court of Human Rights and other (European) human rights mechanisms.

Activities