For years, Dutch legal scholars have been debating about the desirability of mandatory private enforcement of irregularities and fraud by the insolvency practitioner. The assumption is that revenue-oriented insolvency practitioners impede efficient enforcement of irregularities in insolvency. The findings of our quantitative study support the assumption that insolvency practitioners do not take enforcement actions in every suspicious insolvency and that norm violations are less likely to enforced when no recourse is offered. The findings of our qualitative study indicate that there are additional explanations for this relative lack of enforcement, such as lack of renumeration and poor follow-up procedures. Therefore, although the insolvency practitioner is assumed to be of great importance in combatting irregularities in bankruptcies, we doubt the effectiveness and preventive effect of the role of the insolvency practitioner. We make various recommendations to facilitate insolvency practitioners in dealing with irregularities.

In this article, we discuss a ‘person-centred’ view on the enforcement of social security laws. This is a new vision on enforcement whereby welfare workers can ‘differentiate’ in order to create more room for ‘customization’ with an eye for ‘the human dimension’ and an ‘appropriate’ enforcement style. Despite the unanimity about the desirability of this approach, most of the practical details are still unclear. Our central question is therefore: How may a person-centred approach of the enforcement of social security laws be implemented in practice? Based on an action research study, in which we closely collaborated with welfare workers and benefit recipients at a Dutch welfare office, we attempt to answer this question. We first discuss a number of central concepts from the enforcement literature and consider the concept of ‘motivational postures’. For this study, we developed a prototype of a new electronic analytical tool (which can be used to support enforcement) and then applied this tool in a small pilot study. In the article we describe our findings and discuss the experiences of benefit recipients and welfare workers with the analytical tool. We conclude that this tool appears to offer a good basis for the further development of the person-centred enforcement of social security laws.

This is a case study in ‘new legal pluralism’ which is interested in the operation of plural legal orders in countries of the global North. It considers the way in which the Nigerian Igbo living in Antwerp, Belgium settle their disputes. It first presents the Antwerp Igbo’s organisation in a Union possessing a constitution with precise legal stipulations. It then finds that the Igbo take the law with them from their home region into a diasporic community. Next it looks into the concrete organisation of dispute settlement and presents five cases as exemplars. It then discusses the advantages and drawbacks of applying Igbo law and justice, the issue of women’s rights, and the plurality and flexibility of the system. The conclusion underscores the fact that legal pluralism is a universal empirical reality.

De groeiende aandacht voor Empirical Legal Studies (ELS) in Nederland roept vragen op over het onderwijs in empirisch-juridische vaardigheden in ons land. Er gebeurt al het nodige op dit vlak, maar een nauwkeurige inventarisatie van welke ELS-vakken reeds concreet worden aangeboden in Nederland ontbreekt. Een dergelijk overzicht zou het mogelijk maken dat opleidingen van elkaar leren en kennis en kunde uitwisselen in plaats van het wiel opnieuw uit te vinden. Daarom hebben wij een uitgebreide rondgang gemaakt langs de diverse opleidingen aan rechtenfaculteiten, om in kaart te brengen welke vakken met aandacht voor empirische methoden reeds in het reguliere rechtencurriculum worden aangeboden. In dit artikel rapporteren wij de resultaten van deze landelijke inventarisatie en werpen een blik op de toekomst in het licht van recente discussies en ontwikkelingen die verband houden met ELS in Nederland.

André Hoekema, sociologist and lawyer, was one of the driving forces within the sociology and anthropology of law for half a century. His scientific career has been targeted on the development of a non-technic concept of practice for social science, specifically a sociological practice of creating social cohesion and legitimacy and an anthropological practice of cultural self-definition.

In our research project ‘Living on the Other Side’, we aim to understand how (ir)regular migrants from the Middle East and West/Central Africa deal with the legal and formal aspect of their lives in Morocco by focusing on major life events, such as marriage, divorce, birth and death. Life does not simply stand still when residing in a foreign country – people continue to marry, divorce, have children and die. However, there is little empirical knowledge on what migrants actually do when faced with such events. Registering major life events secures a migrant’s legal identity and protects their human rights. Having a legal identity, most likely, influences the daily lives of migrants. A migrant, who does not formally exist in the eyes of the state, might not be able to access basic services, like health care and education. From a legal pluralist perspective, we aim to investigate how migration and family law intersect by conducting online and offline ethnographic fieldwork.