Former Minister of Justice and Interior Affairs , Dr Ernst Hirsch Ballin, has been appointed professor of Human Rights at the Faculty of Law of the University of Amsterdam (UvA) as of 1 March 2011. It is a part-time appointment. Hirsch Ballin will combine his professorship at the UvA with his chair at Tilburg University.

The arrival of Hirsch Ballin will strengthen the profile of the UvA in the field of law and democracy. His research is particularly concerned with the meaning of human rights in the democratic polity. Hirsch Ballin wants to focus primarily on the rights associated with citizenship, including suffrage and other forms of political participation.

Commenting on his appointment, Hirsch Ballin said he was delighted with his role as professor at the faculty where he studied. He not only studied at the UvA’s Faculty of Law, but was also active at a managerial level and obtained his doctorate cum laude (1979). Prof. Edgar du Perron, dean of the Faculty of Law, has warmly welcomed the appointment: ‘We are very happy to be able to welcome Dr Hirsch Ballin, a candidate of considerable academic and social stature, into our ranks.'

From 1977 to 1981 Hirsch Ballin was senior officer at the Department of Public Law of the Ministry of Justice. He was a professor at Tilburg University (UvT) from 1981 to 1989 and from 1994 to 2006. In The Hague, he was, among other things, Minister of Justice (1989-1994), member of the Lower House (1994-1995), member of the Upper House (1995-2000), member - and from 2003 president - of the Advisory Division of the Council of State for the Kingdom (2000-2006), Minister of Justice (2006-2010) and Minister of the Interior and Kingdom Relations (February 2010-October 2010). Since 2005, Hirsch Ballin has been a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences. Dr Hirsch Ballin has also been appointed professor of Dutch and European constitutional law at UvT as of 1 April 2011.