Abstract
This edition of the Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights discusses two upgrades to the publication process, announces several changes to both our International Editorial Board and Editorial Team, and introduces the content of our March 2019 issue.
The NQHR Executive Board is grateful for the opportunities provided by our publisher, SAGE, to ensure that our journal is functioning in an ethical, transparent and fair manner. In particular, as of this year, the NQHR is part of the ORCID iD integration. The Open Researcher and Contributor iDs are unique and persistent digital identifiers that distinguish researchers from every other researcher. By connecting this iD to different research activities and affiliations, ORCID helps researchers gain recognition for their work. In addition, as of October 2018 the NQHR has been integrated in Publons. This enables peer reviewers to track, verify and showcase their review contributions. As reviewers’ contributions are essential for ensuring the highest quality scholarship of our journal, the Board is very pleased that they can now get the recognition they deserve.
In light of the importance of reviewers’ contributions to our journal, the NQHR Executive Board wishes to express its enduring gratitude to our International Editorial Board members for their continuous contribution to the NQHR through insightful and detailed reviews. We are also pleased to announce that Karin de Vries has joined our International Editorial Board. Karin is an Associate Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She is currently working on a project called ‘Equality for non-nationals? Nationality discrimination as a new challenge for non-discrimination law’ funded by a VENI-grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). For this project she investigates the role of nationality in non-discrimination law, using insights from political theory and legal philosophy as well as legal research into case law and legislation. Her expertise relates to immigration law, human rights law, non-discrimination law and citizenship law. The special subject expertise of Karin further expands the scope of expertise of our International Editorial Board. We welcome Karin de Vries and look forward to the collaboration.
The NQHR Executive Board also warmly welcomes new Managing Editor Elif Erken, SIM-Fellow and PhD candidate at Utrecht University, whose research examines the national implementation of the European Convention on Human Rights, focusing in particular on enhancing the role of organised civil society actors and national human rights institutes in this process. She succeeded Leonie Huijbers on 1 February 2019. The Executive Board expresses its sincere gratitude to Leonie for her dedication to the journal and for having ensured the continued smooth running of all its editorial processes. The Board wishes her success in all future endeavours, including the completion of her doctoral research on process-based review in fundamental rights cases. Furthermore, our journal would not run as efficiently as it does without the valuable work of our executive assistants, who edit each contribution to our journal. The Board would sincerely like to thank Marijn Hilbrands and Daniël Slotboom for their previous contribution to the journal, and warmly welcomes Elizabeth McPherson, Emily Campbell, Danielle Snaathorst, and O’Brien Welsch to our editorial team.
Finally, we are happy to introduce our March 2019 issue. This Edition’s column and the SIM Peter Baehr Lecture represent the current tug of war concerning human rights. On the one hand, Agnes Callamard’s lecture, UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Killings, discusses the expansion of the application of international human rights law to armed groups. On the other hand, our International Board Member and legal and policy director of the International Commission of Jurists, Ian Seiderman, examines the increasingly hostile context within which the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has to operate. The articles of this issue turn to a discussion on the case-law and the role of the European Court of Human Rights. Despite the divergence in perspectives, focus and methodologies, the first three articles all concern issues relating to human rights protection of specific groups, that is, trans* persons, migrants, and children. The last article, finally, takes our readers to the domestic level and discusses the role of and the relationship between courts in the Czech Republic in the implementation of human rights.