Erwin Dijkstra is a retired legal scholar, Assyriologist, and writer. Both the excellence of his teaching and the thoroughness of his research have been recognized with prestigious awards, including the JSVO-Education Award. This web page contains his collected scholarly output. As such, it offers anyone a chance to acquire a better understanding of the legal emancipation of impaired persons, the possibilities to oppose discrimination within a liberal democracy, and the role of forests within the myths, legends and folklore of the ancient Near East. A primer of his published fiction is also included.

Lecturer/Researcher at Leiden University

Between 2018 and 2022 Erwin Dijkstra was employed as a lecturer and researcher at Leiden University. During this time he investigated the ways in which discrimination is currently opposed within liberal democracies in addition to developing an alternative and more thorough approach to this societal ill. That research led to a string of articles on this subject and the publication of the book Discrimination and the Foundation of Justice: Hate Speech, Affirmative Action, Institutional Opinions. He also published papers on the often precarious societal position of impaired persons in the Netherlands and beyond.

Editor at Handicap & Recht

During the latter half of his tenure at Leiden University, Erwin Dijkstra was also one of the editors at the pre-eminent Dutch journal on disability rights, Handicap & Recht.