Human Rights in the Polder. Human Rights and Security in the Public and Private Sphere.

What has happened in the Netherlands, this small country with its reputation of tolerance and traditional politics of accommodation? Discussions in the political arena and the media suggest that feelings of insecurity within the Dutch society are increasing. Are human rights less protected in the 21st century? Human Rights in the Polder examines this position, as was done at The Netherlands Institute of Human Right's 25th anniversary conference "Human Rights in the Polder - Human Rights and Human Security in the Public and Private Sphere." Under this theme, the authors identify a number of mainly Dutch issues and discuss these from a human rights perspective in an international setting. The central theme of human rights and security is focused on with particular attention for the private sphere, the public sphere, and the implementation of human rights.

Ineke Boerefijn (LL.M. and PhD in International law of human rights, 1985 at the University of Utrecht) was associate professor at the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM), Utrecht University (1986-2012). She was a visiting research fellow at the Faculty of Law of the University of New South Wales and the Australian Human Rights Centre. She has held the ‘Opzij Chair’ at the Centre for Gender and Diversity, Maastricht University, where she focused on the human rights aspects of violence against women. From 2012 till 2013 she was advisor at the Dutch Equal Treatment Commission in Utrecht. At the moment she is coordinating Policy advisor at the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights (since 2013).

Jenny Goldschmidt is now emeritus professor in human rights at Utrecht University. She has been working in the field of (comparative) constitutional and administrative law at Leyden University (where she got her PhD in 1981: “National and Indigenous Constitutional law in Ghana”). She specialised in human rights and in particular gender and law. She held Chairs in gender and law at both Utrecht and Leyden University and served in many committees and boards in this field, both in the Netherlands and in the EU and UN. In 1994 she became President of the Equal treatment Commission in the Netherlands, where she served the maximum of two terms, until 2003. In 2004 she became professor in Human rights Law and later Director of the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM) at Utrecht University until her retirement in 2014. She is member of the International Commission of Jurists (Geneva) and of several Boards of organisations working in the field of human rights, disability rights etcetera. She published many articles and books.