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As of March 1, 2025, Karin de Vries has been appointed Professor of Fundamental Rights at Utrecht University, at the Faculty of Law, Economics and Governance. In a time when the rights of minorities and vulnerable groups are under pressure and structural discrimination and institutional racism are widespread, De Vries also has hope and ambition. It is important and necessary that research is conducted at universities into the functioning of fundamental rights and how they are influenced by political and social developments. I am very pleased that Utrecht University wants to contribute to this by establishing this chair.

What are fundamental rights actually?

Fundamental rights are an important guarantee in the democratic constitutional state, they are also called human rights. They protect people against the power of the government and also oblige the government to take good care of people by, for example, providing sufficient housing. In doing so, a balance must always be struck between different interests, which makes fundamental rights a particularly fascinating field.

What does it mean to be appointed professor of Fundamental Rights in this day and age?

The rule of law and fundamental rights are under attack, both in the Netherlands and elsewhere in the world. In the United States, a president is in power who ruthlessly attacks the rights of minorities and vulnerable groups. In the Netherlands, the right to demonstrate is under pressure, homelessness is increasing and the rights of migrants are being restricted. So there is a lot of work to be done. Fundamental rights are sometimes seen by those in power as an obstacle. You hear calls to withdraw from treaties, or criticism of judges that set limits to policies drafted by democratically legitimized bodies.

The rule of law and fundamental rights are under attack, both in the Netherlands and elsewhere in the world. So there is a lot of work to be done.

It is important to keep explaining that a counterbalance is always necessary in a constitutional state and that everyone ultimately has an interest in it. If you were to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights because it follows from that treaty that you may not always deport a migrant with a criminal record, then you can no longer rely on it, if the government violates your rights by, for example, secretly collecting all kinds of data or banning a demonstration. Fundamental rights are a guarantee for everyone.

What gives you hope in your field of work?

Fortunately, there is also positive attention for fundamental rights. In the Netherlands, the government wants to partially lift the ban on constitutional review, so that judges can review whether legislation does not violate the fundamental rights in the Constitution. This can provide additional protection and promote a better dialogue between the courts and the legislator about what is specifically needed in the Netherlands to make fundamental rights work properly. At the same time, there is discussion about how best to organise this. Is setting up a constitutional court, as the government wants to establish, the best way to do this?

Fortunately, there is also positive attention. The Dutch government wants to partially lift the ban on constitutional review. That could provide additional protection.

Furthermore, the government now makes a sharp distinction between civil and political fundamental rights and socio-economic rights and does not want to enable constitutional review of the latter, while there is broad agreement among researchers that this distinction is often difficult to make and that the protection of social fundamental rights should be strengthened. It is important that this kind of input is provided. And for this, it is necessary that research is conducted at universities into the functioning of fundamental rights and how this is influenced by political and societal developments. I am very pleased that Utrecht University wants to contribute to this, by establishing this chair.

What will the chair focus on in the near future?

In Utrecht, fundamental rights have long had a firm place in the curriculum of the School of Law. Together with colleagues, I will continue to strengthen that foundation in the coming period and expand it where possible, for example with forms of Community Engaged Learning. Our master students have just presented their thesis topics and many of them write about themes that have to do with fundamental rights, that is great to see and I am happy that we have the expertise to guide them in their research.

Many master students nowadays write theses that touch on fundamental rights, which is great to see.

In terms of research, in the coming period, the chair will focus in the coming period on the role of fundamental rights in the protection of migrants and other minorities against discrimination, in the broadest sense. In recent years, a series of reports have been published showing that structural discrimination and institutional racism are widespread in the Netherlands and certainly also within the government, as demonstrated by the childcare benefits scandal, a landmark ruling on ethnic profiling by the Royal Border Police and anti-fraud controls on non-residents by DUO, the agency that provides study grants, whereby students with a migration background were checked more often.

The Netherlands has legislation that prohibits discrimination, but this is only partly effective to combat this type of structural discrimination. In addition, discrimination increasingly results from of automated decision-making and the use of new technologies such as facial recognition. In my research, I look at where equal treatment law falls short in combating these forms of discrimination and how it can be improved.

Discrimination increasingly results from automated decision-making and the use of new technologies such as facial recognition. I investigate how the law can better combat this.

How do you approach research into the prevention of discrimination?

An important perspective that I use is that of critical legal studies and in particular critical race theory, a theory that states that power relations in society are partly determined by ‘race’. People with a non-white skin colour are therefore excluded. The law, including the way in which fundamental rights are interpreted and applied, contributes to this. In addition to ‘race’, other mechanisms also ensure that fundamental rights do not apply equally to everyone, including gender and class.

Critical legal studies offers tools to map these mechanisms and can therefore make an important contribution to the fundamental rights research that is conducted in the Netherlands. Moreover, in the Netherlands, the exclusion of people of colour cannot be seen separately from colonial history: it is less than a century ago that, among other places, people in the Dutch East Indies were excluded from full citizenship purely on the basis of their origin. With this chair, I want to focus on more research into the way in which this colonial history still influences the functioning of fundamental rights today.

Utrecht University and its School of Law offer a great environment to explore these themes in depth. Within the Montaigne Centre for the Rule of Law and Administration of Justice, we conduct research into the ‘inclusive rule of law’. SIM is the place to be when it comes to research into human rights. In addition, the EQUALS research platform was established on 1 January of this year (2025, ed.), a collaboration of researchers who focus on discrimination and in particular structural forms of discrimination. And fortunately, there is a lot of room for collaboration across the boundaries of disciplines, for example in university platforms such as In/equality and Contesting governance. I will also contribute to this with this chair.