PhD position TEMPORALAW project

1 - Working at the VUB

For more than 50 years, the Vrije Universiteit Brussel has stood for freedom, equality and solidarity, and this is very much alive on our campuses among students and staff alike. 

At the VUB, you will find a diverse collection of personalities: innovators pur sang, but above all people who are 100% their authentic selves. With some 4,000 employees, we are the largest Dutch-speaking employer, in the private sector, in Brussels; an international city with which we are only too happy to connect and where (around) our 4 campuses are located. 

Add to this our principle of free research - in which self-reflection, a critical attitude and an open, creative mind around scientific and social issues are central - and you have a university that is fundamentally groundbreaking and pioneering in education and research. In short: the VUB all over again. 

Moreover, the VUB is a member of EUTOPIA, an alliance of like-minded European universities, all ready to reinvent themselves.

2 - Position description

The Faculty of Law and Criminology, Department Public Sector Law, Research Group Brussels Centre for Law, Government and Society is looking for a PhD-student with a doctoral grant. 

More concretely your work package, for the preparation of a doctorate, contains: 

Project description

Recent years have seen a rising tide of domestic and international climate litigation, including particularly cases based on human and constitutional rights. The TEMPORALAW project, led by Prof. Corina Heri, investigates how these cases engage with the factor of time.

Over the course of five years (2026-2031), the project will engage with the temporal assumptions underlying human rights law, and adjacent legal fields, as exemplified in rights-based climate cases.

TEMPORALAW brings together critical, comparative and socio-legal approaches and builds around a central conceptual framework that emphasizes climate-related engagement by the European Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the International Court of Justice.

From this shared starting point, project team members will engage with the legal, epistemic, institutional and political constraints on implementing future-oriented, temporally inclusive approaches in rights-based climate litigation more broadly. This allows the project, in a first step, to make existing temporal assumptions and limitations explicit, and then, in a second step, to propose and practice-test alternative concepts and argumentation strategies. With affiliations to both the Faculty of Law and Criminology and the Department of Water and Climate (HYDR) within VUB, the project is well-positioned to generate science-informed legal insights.

The two PhD researchers in the TEMPORALAW team will engage with legal temporality by examining legal mechanisms for engaging with the past and the future, including the legal, epistemic and institutional barriers to broader or alternative temporal approaches. Within this overarching framing, the two PhD positions each have their own focus:

• PhD1 has a particular focus on ‘the past’ in rights-based climate litigation. This is envisioned as cutting across human rights law, the law of international responsibility and the international climate regime to examine the legal implications of past actions, normative decisions and inequities (and past greenhouse gas emissions);
• PhD2 has a particular focus on ‘the future’ in rights-based climate litigation. This topic considers legal constructs relative to adjudicating future risks, including through guarantees of the rights of present generations (e.g. through due diligence obligations) and future ones.

What will your role be?

As a TEMPORALAW PhD team member, you will be an integral part of the Brussels-based research team, as well as designing and implementing your independent PhD project. You will be expected to:

• collaborate in the construction of the project’s conceptual framework, together with postdoctoral project members;
• collaborate on select project-based publications and contribute to other project activities, e.g. the organization of project events or research dissemination;
• independently conduct your own research on legal engagement with ‘the past’ (PhD1) and ‘the future’ (PhD2) of climate change (in the form of a monograph or article-based PhD);
• co-supervise, in your third and/or fourth year, and together with other team members, a legal clinic group of MA students applying project findings to a concrete case;
• contribute to academic life at both the Faculty of Law and Criminology and HYDR.

For this function, our Brussels Humanities, Sciences & Engineering Campus (Elsene) will serve as your home base. 

3 - Profile

What do we expect from you?

• By the start of the PhD, you hold a Master’s degree or equivalent in law (ideally human rights law, public international law, climate law, or a related field).

• You have a good knowledge of discourses surrounding the interface between (human rights) law and climate change;
• You are interested in research that combines theory and practice, including by applying critical perspectives to case-law and thinking creatively and comparatively (experience with socio-legal theory and methods is an asset);
• You possess strong English-language skills;
• You are open to a combination of team-based and independent research.

• You have not performed any works in the execution of a mandate as an assistant, paid from operating resources, over a total (cumulated) period of more than 12 months.

• As a (non-)EEA national, meet the conditions for obtaining a valid permit for VUB and comply with the VUB residence requirements. More info here.

The VUB wants to be a reflection of the society where everyone's talent is valued, regardless of gender, age, religion, skin color, migration background, disability and neurodiversity.

4 - Offer

Are you going to be our new colleague?

You’ll be offered a full-time PhD-scholarship, for 12 months (extendable up to max. 48 months, on condition of the positive evaluation of the PhD activities), with planned starting date 01/09/2026. 

You’ll receive a grant linked to one of the scales set by the government.

IMPORTANT: The effective result of the doctorate scholarship is subject to the condition precedent of your enrolment as a doctorate student at the university.

At the VUB, you’re guaranteed an open, involved and diverse workplace where you are offered opportunities to (further) build on your career.

As well as this, you will also enjoy various other benefits:

• Extensive homeworking options, a telework allowance of 50 euros per month OR an internet fee of 20 euros per month;
• An open and informal working environment where attention is paid to work-life balance, and exceptional holiday arrangements with 35 days of leave (based on a fulltime contract), closure between Christmas and New Year and 3 extra leave days;
• Cost-free hospitalisation insurance;
• Full reimbursement of your home-to-work commute with public transport according to VUB-policy, and/or compensation if you come by bike; 
• A wide selection of meals in our campus restaurants at attractive prices;
• Excellent and affordable facilities for sport and exercise, a range of discounts via Benefits@Work (in  all kinds of shops, on flights, in petrol stations, amusement parks...) and Ecocheques; 
• Nursery near campus, discount on holiday camps; 
• The space to form your job content and to continuously learn through our VUB learning platforms and training courses;
• And finally: great colleagues with a healthy drive.

5 - Interested?

Is this the job you’ve been dreaming of?

Then apply, at the latest on 29/05/2026, via jobs.vub.be, and upload your application file (single pdf-file) with ‘TEMPORALAW PhD application’ in the subject and containing the following documents:

• your motivation letter / cover letter (max. 1 page), mentioning which of the two PhD topics you would prefer;
• your CV, including the contact details of two referees and the title of your Master thesis (if applicable);
• your Master diploma or latest transcript of academic records (not applicable for VUB alumni).

Our application process is as follows (subject to change):

• step 1: an initial selection based on your application file; 
• step 2: a job interview. Invitations for the interview will be sent early June, interviews will be held late June (with a possible second round if needed).

Do you have questions about the job content? Contact Corina Heri at corina.heri@vub.be.

Would you like to know what it’s like to work at the VUB? Go to jobs.vub.be, and find all there is to know about our campuses, benefits, strategic goals and your future colleagues.

Would you like more information about EUTOPIA? Go to eutopia-university.eu, and read more about the role of the VUB in the development of the EUTOPIA alliance.