Research

Roland Pierik is Associate Professor of Legal Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam.

In addition, he is:

• Director of the Paul Scholten Centre for Jurisprudence;
• Member of The Health Council of the Netherlands;
• Associated member of the Philosophy Department in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Amsterdam;
• Lecturer at the  PPLE Bachelor programme (Politics, Psychology, Law and Economics) at the University of Amsterdam.
• member of the Advisory Board of the NIAS-Lorentz Program. 

Paul Scholten Centre

The Paul Scholten Centre for Jurisprudence (PSC) is the meta-juridical research institute in the Amsterdam Law School. We are the pivotal centre for the legal-theoretical, i.e. empirical, historic and normative study of the law. Our research revolves around our research program Law in Contexts.

Health Council

The Health Council of the Netherlands – de Gezondheidsraad – is an independent scientific advisory body whose legal task it is to advise ministers and Parliament in the field of public health. I have been appointed by Royal decree on 1 January 2018. I am actively involved in the Standing Vaccinations Committee and the ad hoc HPV Committee (human papillomavirus).

Research interests
My research interests revolve around the question of how liberal democracies should deal with cases of colluding fundamental rights or conflicts between fundamental rights and other central ideals within constitutional democracies: the rule of law or democracy. I study fundamental rights both as legal-philosophical concepts and as legally enforceable rights as they have been formalized in human rights conventions, especially the ECHR. 
I have analyzed a myriad of such legal disputes and policy dilemmas: the discussion of the crucifix in Italian public school before the EC(t)HR; the role of human rights in the regulation of transnational clinical trials; The shared responsibility of nation states to protect fundamental human rights for all; and the tension between universal human rights and national identity.

His research interests lie at the intersections of legal philosophy, political theory, law and public policy, especially contemporary liberal theories of justice and their application in plural societies. His recent work focusses on human rights, fundamental rights, the rule of law, religious diversity, and globalization.

Vaccination
Since 2013, my research interests increasingly gravitated towards the legal regulation of childhood vaccination against infectious diseases. Several (conflicting) fundamental rights are pivotal in these discussions: the freedom of religion and conscience of non-vaccinating parents, the right to bodily integrity, but also the right to health of unvaccinated children – in particular Art. 3 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, stating that in all actions concerning children, their best interests must be a primary consideration of state agencies. Other relevant considerations are the responsibility of the state to protect public health and vulnerable citizens. 

I am currently working on a monograph entitled Inducing Immunity: The Regulation of Vaccination  (with Marcel Verweij). In this book, we analyse the conditions under which a liberal-democratic government should make vaccination against infectious diseases such as such as measles, polio and whooping cough mandatory.

• Click here to see an overview of my work on vaccination.

Unequal treatment of MSM men in blood donation policies
Together with Marcel Verweij, I carry out an ethical research project for Sanquininto the recruitment policy of donors. Stricter rules currently apply to men who have sex with men (MSM) than to other donors. Some see this as discriminatory and stigmatising - see for instance Ellemeet et al.'s motion in Parliament (29 447 no. 53). How can the safety of donor blood be guaranteed without discriminatory donor recruitment policies?

Earlier appointments

Before I came to Amsterdam, I taught political theory at Radboud University Nijmegen (2000-2006) and legal theory at Tilburg University (2006-2009). In 2015 and 2016 I was affiliated as a ‘visiting fellow’ to the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Leuven. Before that, he was a visiting scholar at the Centre for the Study of Social Justice of Oxford University (2013), University College London (2005), Columbia University (2004) and Ottawa University (1997-1998). 

Recent publications:

• “Mandatory Vaccination: an Unqualified Defence.” Journal of Applied Philosophy (2018, vol. 35, no. 2, pp. 381-398).

• “On Religious and Secular Exemptions. A Case Study of Childhood Vaccination Waivers.” Ethnicities (2017 vol. 17, no. 2, pp.220–241).

• “Human Rights and the Regulation of Transnational Clinical Trials” Political Studies (2015 Vol. 63, No. 4, pp. 870-886).

• "Shared Responsibility in International Law: A Normative-Philosophical Analysis." In: André Nollkaemper & Dov Jacobs (eds.), Distribution of Responsibilities in International Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015).
• "Religion ain’t sacrosanct. How to fight obsolete accounts of religious freedom. Netherlands Journal of Legal Philosophy (2015, vol. 44, no. 3.) 
• "What is Neutrality?" Ratio Juris, (2014 vol. 27, no. 4, pp. 496–515), co-authored with Wibren van der Burg.
• "The Return of the Measles to the Low Countries: A Legal-Philosophical Exploration" (editorial), Netherlands Journal of Legal Philosophy (2014, Vol. 43, no. 2, pp. 103-107).
• “State Neutrality and the Limits of Religious Symbolism” in Jeroen Temperman (Ed.) The Lautsi Papers: Multidisciplinary Reflections on Religious Symbols in the Public School Classroom, (Leiden, Boston: BRILL/Martinus Nijhoff), pp. 201-218.
• “Do We Have a Negative Duty Towards the Global Poor? Thomas Pogge on Global Justice” in Jean-Christophe Merle (ed.), Spheres of Global Justice. Dordrecht: Springer (2013), ch. 48, pp. 595-610.

Core publications:

• Cosmopolitanism in Context: Perspectives from International Law and Political Theory (Cambridge University Press, 2010, co-editor: Wouter Werner). With contributions from Thomas Pogge, Simon Caney, Nicholas Tsagourias, Kok-Chor Tan, Ellen Hey, Thomas Spijkerboer, Tomer Broude, Victor Peskin, and Jorge Valades. @Amazon.com
• "Collective Responsibility and National Responsibility," Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy (CRISPP), (2008, Vol. 11, No. 4, pp. 465-483).
• “Resources versus Capabilities: Social Endowments in Egalitarian Theory", Political Studies, (2007, Vol. 55 No. 1, pp. 133-152, co-authored with Ingrid Robeyns).
• “Reparations for Luck Egalitarians”, Journal of Social Philosophy (2006, Vol. 37 No. 3, pp. 423–440).
• “Western Policies on Child Labor Abroad", Ethics & International Affairs, (2006, Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 193-218, Co-authored with Mijke Houwerzijl).
• “Conceptualizing Cultural Groups and Cultural Difference: The Social Mechanism-Approach”, Ethnicities (2004, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 523-544).

Supervision of PhD students:

• Geoff Gordon (International legal theory, VU University Amsterdam, Innate Cosmopolitanism, (successfully defended on 22 April 2013).
• Hadassa Noorda Thinking war in the 21st century: Introducing non-state actors in Just war theory (successfully defended on 27 Oktober 2016), with prof. Marc de Wilde.
• Tamar de Waal Conditional Belonging: A Legal-Philosophical Inquiry into Integration Requirements for Immigrants in Europe. (successfully defended on 21 September 2017) with prof. Marc de Wilde and prof. Will Kymlicka.
• Lars Nickelson (Political Theory, UvA, 2013 –) on the governance of religious pluralism, with dr Marcel Maussen.
• Steven Kraaijeveld (Public health ethics, Wageningen University, 2018 –) on altruistic vaccination.

Teaching

• Law, Justice and Morality (in the PPLE Bachelor programme) Study guide
• Legal philosophy and legal theory (in the Law faculty)