On Friday 22 November 2019, a celebration in honour of Paul Lemmens’ emeritus status was held, in the company of many of his friends and colleagues. For this occasion, a number of them wrote a contribution for the wonderful Liber amicorum Paul Lemmens. In this blog series we draw attention to several contributions in this book. This post constitutes a warning from the social field on the practical consequences of theoretical human rights frameworks, authored by dr. Nathalie Van Leuven.