Hanneke van Eijken is Professor Rule of Law and Democracy (Alex Brenninkmeijer Wisselleerstoel). She examines the rule of law and democratic processes from a citizens' perspective.
Her fields of expertise are migration, EU citizenship, European asylum law, fundamental rights in the European Union and free movement rights.
In October 2014 she defended her PhD thesis '"European citizenship and the constitutionalisation of the European Union" (Europa Law Publishing). In her thesis she analysed the role of EU citizenship in the process of the constitutionalisation of the European Union, under the supervision of Professor and judge of the CJEU Sacha Prechal. During her research she made several research visits to the Court of Justice in Luxembourg and stayed at the European University Institute in Florence as a visiting researcher.
Hanneke worked as legal advisor EU law at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs during the Dutch presidency of the EU ( January-July 2016) and in 2018 (January-December). She is a commission member of the Advisory Council on International Affairs (AIV).
From 2013-2017 Hanneke was involved in a multidiscplinary research project BEUCitizen, in which she conducted research on civil rights and EU citizenship. Moreover, from September 2008 to September 2013 Hanneke was assistant coordinator for the European Commission’s Network of Legal Experts in the Field of Gender Equality. Earlier she worked at Pels Rijcken & Droogleever Fortuijn as a support lawyer in the European law division. Hanneke, moreover, worked in the field of family law at a Dutch law firm and was a trainnee at a law firm in Curacao.
Hanneke taught courses on International and European law, in the Netherlands as well as in Istanbul and Zagreb. Hanneke is part of the editorial board of the Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Europees Recht and is a board member of the Dutch Association for Migration Research.
The Common Market Law Review evaluated her PhD thesis positively:
“Van Eijken discusses a very complex and wide topic with great intellectual rigour and skill. This book is therefore highly recommended to anyone who wants to consider the relationship between the status of EU citizenship and the constitutionalization of the EU in the light of recent case law and EU legislation. It should also be accessible to advanced students of EU law – thanks to the author’s ability to discuss difficult legal and theoretical phenomena with clarity and precision. The present book is based on the author’s doctoral thesis, but she is also a published poet. The reader can enjoy this quality of her writing, for instance, at the beginning of the final chapter where she draws a vivid picture of “desire paths” as a metaphor for European constitutionalization (p. 249). The book makes a welcome and thoroughly researched contribution to the not-yet-fully-defined role of EU citizenship in advancing the constitutional development of the European Union.”
Outside the context of European law, Hanneke writes poetry and performs at literary festivals. Her collection of poetry was published in the spring of 2013 (‘Papieren veulens’, Prometheus, 2013).