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;
• 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.

Research interests
My research interests revolve around the question of how liberal democracies should deal with cases of conflicting 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.

My 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 currently work on a monograph entitled Inducing Immunity: Regulating Collective Immunisation in Times of Vaccine Hesitancy (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.

• Overview of my work on vaccination.

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)