Abstract
Just like changing the guard at the entrance of important buildings, academic journals like the Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights also regularly change their inner workings. The person on which a journal like ours relies the very most, is the managing editor – a central node keeping the flow and publication of articles going and coordinating between all the players that make up the success of a journal: authors, reviewers, Executive and International Boards and our publisher. And maybe most importantly, functioning as crucial institutional memory.
Over the past 2.5 years the journal has functioned smoothly thanks to our managing editor Elif Erken. She now bids farewell in order to focus on her dissertation which nears its completion. On behalf of the Executive and International Boards, I would like to thank her for the way she has managed the journal. It was a true pleasure to work with her. Her diplomatic style of communication, her dedication and efficiency and her always cheerful demeanor will be truly missed. We wish her the very best in the final stages of her PhD research.
As her successor, the NQHR Executive Board warmly welcomes our new managing editor, Elmin Omičević, a PhD researcher in transnational law enforcement and fundamental rights at Utrecht University Law School. He is a fellow of the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM) and a researcher at the Utrecht Centre for Regulation and Enforcement in Europe (RENFORCE) and the Willem Pompe Institute for Criminal Law and Criminology. Elmin's doctoral research focuses on the external dimension of European agencies and bodies operating in the EU's Area of Freedom, Security and Justice and, more specifically, questions the extent to which these actors can be held accountable for human rights violations committed in cooperation with countries outside the EU. This research suits his interest in the precarious relationship between the effective fight against crime and the respect for fundamental rights. Further academic interests include international justice and the Western Balkans region, the position of minorities in society – whether they be ethnic, sexual or gender minorities – and the power of both human rights and criminal law to enhance that position. We very much look forward to working with him!