Like any legal system, international law assigns a place to responsibility. The very recognition of the existence of international law implies the principle of responsibility for the violation of the international legal duties imposed on the State. As formulated by Max Huber, the first president of the Permanent Court of International Justice: “La responsabilité est le corollaire nécessaire du droit. Tous droits d'ordre international ont pour conséquence une responsabilité internationale.” Ch. de Visscher regards the international responsibility of States as a logical consequence of their equality in the international legal system. The mutual recognition of their sovereignty implies on the one hand the freedom of action essential to the accomplishment of their objectives, while on the other hand it imposes upon them the restrictions necessarily ensuing from the existence of different States that have equal rights. “Une fois reconnu par la communauté Internationale, l'Etat … apparait comme capable d'enfreindre le droit international et d'assumer de ce chef des responsabilités.”

1. Domicile is “… l'une des notions les plus fuyantes et les plus insaississables de nos systemes juridiques”. Are these words of Lagarde applicable to the notion of domicile as a connecting factor in the Netherlands conflict of laws? The present article sets out to cast some light upon this question. After a survey of the manifestations of domicile, usually referred to in Netherlands private international law as woonplaats or domicilie, as a connecting factor, attention will be paid to the hypothetical usefulness in private international law of the Netherlands Civil Code provisions devoted to woonplaats. Subsequently Netherlands judicial decisions will be reviewed in order to find out which elements – if any – are ascribed by Netherlands courts to the concept of domicile. As a result of this investigation a few distinctions into categories of cases will be made, giving rise to the question whether the meaning of domicile in private international law differs according to the legal question(s) it is intended to serve.

The 1975 Annual Meeting of the Netherlands branch of the International Law Association (Nederlandse Vereniging voor Internationaal Recht), held in Gouda on April 26th, discussed two reports on the contract provisions of the Preliminary Draft EEC Convention on the Law Applicable to Contractual and Non-contractual Obligations, elaborated by a Group of Government Experts of the six original Member States in June, 1972.

In this report I consider the preliminary draft not so much from the point of view of its usefulness to various branches of legal practice, including business life and the courts, but in particular with respect to the tenability of the theoretical standpoints that are implicit in it. It is my view that a seemingly useful body of rules, however precisely formulated and however little room for interpretation it leaves, will prove deficient in practice, in terms for instance of the predictability of the outcome of its application, unless it rests upon a sound – and not a sand – foundation.