Some European cities choose to protect undocumented migrants, even when this defies national immigration law. These “Sanctuary Cities” create new spaces of legality from below, offering not only services but also symbolic and political recognition. This project breaks new ground by analysing these practices through the lens of constitutional law, reframing cities as autonomous, norm-producing actors. Focusing on Utrecht, Palermo, and Barcelona, it combines legal theory, comparative analysis, and fieldwork to explore how cities generate alternative legalities. The research opens a new line of inquiry into legal pluralism and urban sovereignty, offering tools to rethink rights protection in Europe.

From volunteers helping refugees cross borders to climate protesters blocking highways, activists are facing harsh criminalization. Could the altruistic nature of their actions provide legal protection? This project explores the “right to help others” as a criminal defence, examining both its potential and its limitations. While existing laws and court decisions offer partial protection, they remain inconsistent and fragmented. Through comparative legal research and insights from activists and experts, the project defines the analytical content of the right to help others, as well as when and how this right should apply.

This project reinterprets the 1920 Istanbul Military Tribunals as a foundational yet overlooked moment in the emergence of international criminal law. Drawing on Ottoman legal records, diplomatic archives, and press sources, it examines how law, emotion, and sovereignty were performatively negotiated after mass violence, and shows how collective affects shaped perceptions of justice and legal legitimacy. By highlighting non-Western experiences as well as the historical and emotional dimensions of law, the project offers an innovative interdisciplinary approach to transitional justice; one that can inform memory work and support the pursuit of sustainable peace.

In the Netherlands, adolescents with an eating disorder who are in danger of dying are usually admitted to a department for youth psychiatry. During treatment in these departments, the themes of trust and coercion are at odds with each other. After all, trust is needed to recover and coercive measures (e.g. forced feeding) are needed to stay alive. Research is needed into the role of trust and coercion in recovery such that our understanding of what is helpful in recovering from a serious eating disorder is improved.

Long thought to be unchangeable, recent studies have shown that people can actively change aspects of their personality, for instance become less worried or more sociable. Such changes can have a long-term positive impact on people’s lives, but approaches used to support these efforts are still novel and not well understood. Based on state-of-the-art from health research, this project develops an adaptive smartphone-based personality intervention that provides support when it can be most impactful. The findings can open a new avenue for digital psychological intervention designs and provide more knowledge on the ideal type and timing of intervention activities.