Abstract In armed conflicts and crises, children with disabilities face serious threats to their lives and safety, including those related to their inability to flee attacks, risk of abandonment, lack of access to assistive devices, lack of access to basic services and denial of education as well as experiences of stigma, abuse, psychological harm and poverty. Children with disabilities experience multiple and intersecting forms of human rights violations based on their disability and age. Since 2015, Human Rights Watch has documented the impact of armed conflict on children with disabilities in Afghanistan, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Gaza Strip in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen. While international human rights specifically call for the protection of children with disabilities in situations of armed conflict, the United Nations, governments, parties to the conflict and humanitarian actors have long neglected their specific rights and needs. There is an urgent need for the United Nations and governments to increase efforts to protect children with disabilities as part of their international commitments to protect all children impacted by hostilities. Their attention and investment in those most at risk of violence during armed conflicts will in turn enhance protection measures for everyone.

The previous chapter discussed the existing forms of variation within the internal market. The remainder of this book discusses forms of variation that fall both within and outside the current framework of European Union Treaty law. This chapter connects the various dots to reveal a broad range of variation options.

The European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and the euro and euro area to which it gave birth have often been presented as the definitive and irreversible outcome of European integration, or even as a historical necessity at a crucial time of major changes in world politics. Today, however, the story of deeper integration and unification through the single currency is being called into question.

Security, freedom, stability and prosperity create the conditions for people to maintain economic and personal relationships with one another, to express themselves freely and to profess their beliefs, to be free from violence and to be protected from disproportionate risk. That is, in brief, the meaning of a democratic and social legal state.

The previous chapter described how globalisation, the erosion of embedded liberalism and social protection, and pressure on mutual solidarity between Member States have led to growing frictions in the European Union. These frictions have usually had a combination of causes: external events, internal choices, or the unforeseen consequences of compromises that turned out better for one country or one segment of the population than for another.

Since the early years of the common market, the Community legal order has focused on removing obstacles to the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital; in other words, on creating a single market. Social protection remained in place in national legislation; harmonisation was sought where politically feasible, but ‘Europeanisation’ has remained limited in this domain. Free competition was promoted through a European-level anti-trust policy and by counteracting preferential treatment by national governments. As a Member State of the European Union, the Netherlands is part of an internal and external economy of unprecedented power, with more than half a billion consumers and a combined Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of 14,714 billion euros (2015), the largest GDP in the world. Two thirds of the EU’s trade in goods takes place between EU countries, with a volume of 3070 billion euros (2015). Approximately 72% of Dutch goods exports (measured in terms of their value) go to EU countries, and more than half of its imports come from EU countries (2015). With the removal of barriers as the starting point, the Netherlands, like its neighbouring countries, is closely intertwined with its European biotope. Dutch legislation is embedded in European legislation in almost every area, and in fact it must be, because differences would be susceptible to exploitation in the single market. Even technical requirements for appliances must not differ too much from country to country, as they would otherwise create an obstacle to European trade or give one or other country an undesirable competitive advantage. Since the reforms of recent decades, virtually all relevant legislation is the result of joint decision-making by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union, at the initiative of the European Commission. The Member States are represented in the Council by a minister; decisions are taken by qualified majority, which means that for a decision to pass, at least 55% of the Member States, representing at least 65% of the population, must be in favour of it. The weekly

Human migration is an outstanding example of a policy domain in which the links between European countries and their surroundings are revealed. The policy domains of asylum, migration and border control touch on international mobility, the protection of fundamental human rights, and international security all around Europe and within it. They also provoke intense debate among populations.

The internal market, which encompasses the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital, is at the heart of European cooperation. The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) prohibits Member States, and in some cases private organisations, from introducing measures that impede free movement. In addition, there are provisions in the Treaty that prohibit companies from obstructing competition in the internal market.