"Towards a new balance in empowerment and protection of the elderly: A legal empirical perspective"

This proposal aims to fundamentally reshape the system of legal measures of adult protection in the
Netherlands. In our rapidly aging society people live longer and often face deterioration of mental abilities
later in life. Accommodation of their needs and interests becomes one of the most urgent societal
challenges. The existing Dutch system is not up to this task as it is still based on the obsolete paradigm of
protection: vulnerable adults have to be protected by substantially reducing their legal capacity and
appointing a legal guardian to protect their interests. This system conflicts with international human rights
particularly the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. It also no longer satisfies the
demands and needs of the present-day generation of elderly, who want more empowerment to manage
their own life and affairs as long and as much as possible. In order to avoid the application of statutory
measures affecting their legal capacity, elderly persons massively choose for a living will - a new voluntary
instrument, not affecting legal capacity. This instrument is not regulated by law and does not provide
sufficient safeguards from abuse by the legal representative. Thus, a fundamental change is imperative.
This project will generate new knowledge and combine the existing knowledge & experience of
professionals involved in the consortium. The acquired knowledge will be used for creating a modern,
empowerment-based system of statutory and voluntary measures for legal protection of the elderly that
will comply with human rights; building upon the best practices of other countries; evidence-based &
empirically tested; broadly accepted by professionals and elderly. The research findings will be piloted and
ex-ante tested in a unique research ‘lab’, resulting in practical guidelines for judiciary, professionals and
elderly. An interdisciplinary mixed-method design which combines legal-dogmatic, comparative and
empirical research will be used.