The development of nation States has led to a growing importance of nationality, to the expansion of the services provided by the State and to an improvement in the status of persons working in the public service. Each of these developments in the past provided grounds for the idea that only individuals possessing the nationality of the State could perform tasks in the public service.

This article addresses the state of product liability law in the Netherlands. After discussing the purpose and the main features of the EC Product Liability Directive, it shows when the Member States of the EC should have incorporated the Directive into their national legislations.

When I acceded to the chair of Special Commission 3 in March 1986, the PrepCom, consisting of 159 Member States and six observers, had already been meeting twice a year since early 1983. However, in its first year of existence most of the time was spent on procedural questions. The first report on the substantive activities of Special Commission 3 dates from 12 April 1984 in the form of a statement to the Plenary by the Chairman of Special Commission 3 on the progress of its work. Since then, reports on the progress of work have been published every spring and summer session. Such reports are not reports in the usual sense of the word (texts adopted by the Special Commission). They are prepared by the Chairman and the Secretariat and are read out in the Special Commission before they are printed as a document. The draft report is handed to the main spokesmen so that they can check whether their points of view are properly reflected. Usually there is no debate on the report in the last meeting of the session; they remain the Chairman's responsibility. In a Conference where no formal records are kept, they fulfil a special function and are carefully prepared for use as an aid in the reporting by delegations on the session and preparing for the next session.