Ernst Hirsch Ballin: ‘The ability to see ‘us in them’ is decisive for the whole issue of migration’

by  Narin Idriz and Pascal Messer

source: Hilko Visser

He has been a state councillor, a politician, the longest serving minister of Justice in the Netherlands since the early 19th century, president of the T.M.C. Asser Institute, centre for International and European law, but above all, he is a legal scholar and a jurist. Later this month, Ernst Hirsch Ballin will say farewell as a professor of Human Rights Law at the UvA. His farewell seminar at the Asser Institute will focus on Global Migration, a topic close to his heart. We interviewed him prior to the seminar. Ernst Hirsch Ballin: “Sadly, there is the widespread misconception that you can take wind out of the sails of populist parties by not speaking out clearly against their ideas”. More...