The Invisible Worlds of Religion and Economy

Twelve years ago I accepted my Chair at ISS with an inaugural lecture entitled Rats, Cockroaches and People Like Us, in which I discussed the relation between people’s views of humanity and actual human rights. In it I made a plea for an intelligent use of the wide range of religious and spiritual resources available to people all over the world for the sake of human rights. In subsequent years I have expanded this argument by advocating the inclusion of religious resources for development in the broadest sense. Twelve years later it seems that, at least in the Netherlands, this remains a controversial proposal, especially in view of the great changes in the political climate at home and abroad since the dramatic events in 2001

Rats, cockroaches and people like us : views of humanity and human right

Many people appear to believe that there are a growing number of religious conflicts in the world, particularly since the end of the Cold War. On closer examination, however, it seems that the number of conflicts of the type which are today often labelled 'ethnic' or' 'religious' has in fact been growing since the 1950s'. Many such conflicts were already detectable in the period of the Cold War, but at that time, they were usually interpreted within a framework of East-West relations

Labour law in a changing world

The world around us is changing rapidly due to digitalisation, robotisation, the green transition, growing scarcity of resources, and an increasingly individualised society at large. Many of these issues profoundly affect the world of work. Not surprisingly, a lot of attention is paid to each of these changes in the field of labour law and many others. In some fields, like socio-economics, new theories are proposed to deal with these changes. Like Kate Raworth's Doughnut Economics and Mariana Muzzucato's Mission Economics. Anticipating the paradigm shifts these theories will create, prof. Beryl ter Haar's research will re-think, re-imagine, and re-shape labour law. As such her research will reconsider the basic values, purposes and functions of labour law, including established institutions such as the employment contract, the need for social security and social benefits and trade unionism. This is important since understanding where we are heading towards, will ensure the coherence and consistency of our labour law systems, enable us to make the transition, and find more sustainable labour law solutions for nowaday labour law problems