In this contribution attention is paid to the development of private international law in the Netherlands. The establishment of the Hague Conference on Private International law in 1893 is taken as a starting point. The development of the Conference is roughly sketched. In 1910 the Netherlands Society of International Law was founded, the first national branch of the ILA. An overview is given of the Society's preliminary reports dealing with matters of private international law. The codification of PIL was the subject of the Society's annual meeting in 1990, where the importance of a step-by-step codification was emphasized. The development towards codification is discussed. Codification had already started in 1981 and would come to an end in 2009 with the introduction of the bill on Book 10 of the Dutch Civil Code. It may be expected that the bill will be adopted by Parliament in 2011. Attention is paid to this bill, which introduces the further codification and consolidation of the existing statutes on PIL and recombines them in Book 10 of the Civil Code.

Existing literature on the developing countries' experience with the WTO dispute settlement system (DSS) has paid scant attention to the participation issue of the least developed countries (LDCs), which currently form one-fifth of the WTO membership but constitute less than one per cent of participation in DSS. This article fills this gap by examining several dimensions of LDCs' participation. Upholding the significance of LDCs' participation it explores the challenges faced by LDCs at the pre-litigation, litigation and implementation stage emanating from power asymmetries, resource constraints and flawed DSS remedies. The article particularly looks into the nature of LDCs' participation, which is mostly in the category of third parties. In doing so, it evaluates the third-party participation of Benin and Chad in US – Upland Cotton to ascertain whether third-party participation could be an alternative for LDCs to participate as co-complainants. It analyzes the special and differential treatment provisions of the DSU to further scrutinize whether these provisions and the way they are interpreted and applied in the WTO Panel Reports and the Appellate Body Reports are facilitative for LDCs' participation. Finally, the article makes recommendations to address the challenges on the part of LDCs and to reform DSS so as to make it effective for LDCs' participation.

The speaker expresses his indebtedness to the T.M.C. Asser Institute for the opportunity afforded for his return to The Hague, which he considers to be the natural habitat of many an international lawyer. The Hague has long been and still remains the centre for international adjudication, arbitration and other activities in the field of pacific settlement of disputes. The speaker is particularly gratified to be back at the birth place of the illustrious Hugo de Groot, whose four hundredth birthday anniversary is soon to be celebrated, not only in The Netherlands, but also the world over. Many great names have indeed followed that of Grotius. To name but one further, Cornelius van Bijnkershoek ranks among the celebrated classics of international law.

The great attraction of comparative law — whatever this term actually means — undoubtedly to some extent for legal scholars consists in the boundless freedom it offers. As shown in the many publications which have appeared since the 1900 Paris Congress, the most grandiose ideas have been developed, even when there is actually very little chance that they will ever be materialized and really only have a place in books of tall stories. Unattainable wishes have been expressed which are intimidating and discouraging. Views have been put forward with no other purpose than to create rather doubtful problem areas for future contemplation. Perfect methods of comparison have been recommended without any attempt at providing any illustrations of their application, while from the other side, views can even be heard which openly question whether comparative law even exists.

A state's denunciation of a treaty with the sole objective of re-acceding to it with a reservation may be interpreted as circumventing the prohibition of the late formulation of reservations enshrined in Article 19 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. This article addresses five cases where the denunciation of and re-accession to a treaty was at least considered by certain states and whose analysis promises to clarify the legal characteristics of this practice. One instance involved such a practice being discussed by the Swiss Federal Tribunal in the context of the amendment of the Swiss interpretative declaration to Article 6(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights. Another instance involved Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana with regard to the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. A further situation arose when in 2002 Sweden denounced and re-acceded to the Council of Europe Convention on the Reduction of Multiple Nationality and on Military Obligations in Cases of Multiple Nationality with the aim of excluding the obligations contained in Chapter I of this treaty. The last case analyzed in this article is Bolivia's denunciation of and re-accession to the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. The aim of this article is to offer a critical appraisal of this practice under international law. The article argues that the European states' position differs from the generality of states. In addition, states may include specific provisions on the possibility of denouncing and re-acceding with a reservation when they draft their treaties. States may review more systematically the treaty action and object to practices that are not compatible with the reserving states' good faith treaty obligations. And the ILC may include this topic into its work programme, for example, when updating the Guide to Practice on Reservations to Treaties.

At a Conference held in Mexico City from 17th to 28th September 1970, the statutes of a new universal intergovernmental organisation, The World Tourism Organisation, were drawn up, to become effective and the organisation bought into being 120 days after 51 competent States have signified their acceptance of them. These statutes were drawn up in circumstances which, from a legal point of view, can only be regarded as decidedly unusual. Basically what happened was that the International Union of Official Travel Organisations, IUOTO, an international non-governmental organisation, was attempting to secure a means whereby it could “transform” itself from its private law status into a fully-fledged international intergovernmental organisation, governed by public international law, and this without any break in the continuity of legal personality between the two situations. The story of the metamorphosis of IUOTO makes interestingreading.

The scholarly contributions of C.C.A. Voskuil—Bert to his friends—include a number of publications devoted to various aspects of international civil procedure, a topic all too often neglected by conflicts scholars. He has paid special attention to jurisdictional issues, which furnished the topic for the doctoral thesis he presented thirty years ago. The honoree's emphasis on the procedural side of private international law reflects a commendable awareness of the implications jurisdictional and other adjective rules have in practice, and how they touch upon the theoretical foundations of our discipline. It therefore seems appropriate to discuss some of these implications in the Liber Amicorum dedicated to our Dutch friend and colleague.

The recent events in East Timor and Kosovo have demonstrated clearly that human brutality and wanton behaviour are not elements which are exclusive to the African continent, but rather they are manifestations of the human condition. However, it is fair to say that Africa has had more than its fair share. In particular, the African continent has recently had states which have experienced anarchy to levels where the state has either collapsed completely or has become dysfunctional.

On 25 November 1981 the General Assembly of the United Nations by its Resolution 36/55 adopted the Declaration on the Elimination of all Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination based on Religion or Belief (hereinafter referred to as the Declaration). In doing so it has – albeit only partly – fulfilled a wish which it had expressed in 1962 during its 17th Session in a resolution by which the General Assembly requested the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) to ask the Commission on Human Rights(the Commission) to prepare a draft declaration on the elimination of all forms of religious intolerance, to be submitted to the Assembly for consideration at its eighteenth session, and a draft international convention on the elimination of all forms of religious intolerance, to be submitted to the Assemblyif possible at its nineteenth session and, in any case, not later than at its twentieth session.

After the UN General Assembly had, on 14 December 1960, officially rung out the colonial era by adopting the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples (Resolution 1514 (XV)) with a convincing majority (89 to 0 with 9 abstentions), the new States of the third world rapidly succeeded in pitting their numerical superiority in the General Assembly against the political and economic power of the industrialised world. This made it possible for the UN system – which dates back to 1945 and the structure of which the new States had not, or had hardly, been able to influence – to be adjusted to their specific needs, particularly in the vital fields of trade and industry. Thus, they contributed by their majority in the UN Assembly to the setting up in 1964 of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and in 1966 of the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) as organs of the General Assembly.

1. As is evident from the way in which the question of the so-called extraterritorial effect of antitrust legislation is dealt with in the literature, in doctrinal discussions and in judicial decisions, it can be approached from various angles: from the standpoint of private international law, of international administrative law, of international criminal law, and of public international law.

The editors of the Netherlands International Law Review have asked Mr. J.B.J.M. ten Berge and myself to contribute articles on the subject of the National Ombudsman, a new institution in the Netherlands. We have agreed that I should deal with the historical background and legal character of this institution, comparing it with the Justitie Ombudsman (hereinafter referred to as the J.O.) in Sweden and the Folketingets Ombudsmand (hereinafter referred to as the F.O.) in Denmark, while Mr. ten Berge would deal with the technical aspects.

Of all the four Conventions the second Convention conforms most nearly with existing customary law and its contents are, at the same time, the most varied of them all. They comprise, in fact, all the traditional solutions to the various problems to which the regime of the high seas has, through the centuries, given rise. They almost form an extract from the many textbooks of public international law dealing with the high seas and there is hardly an element of surprise or novelty in them.

After holding the issue on its agenda for many years, the UN Commission on Human Rights on 10 March 1987 adopted a path-breaking resolution supporting conscientious objection to military service as a ‘legitimate exercise of the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion recognized by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights! The Commission recommended that governments introduce various forms of alternative service for conscientious objectors, establish impartial procedures for deciding specific cases, and ‘refrain from subjecting such persons to imprisonment’.

After 30 years of negotiations, the Rhine river is still very polluted. Although the concentration of some pollutants has diminished during the past few years, the quantity of other harmful substances is still increasing. This lack of progress can be explained to a large extent by a set of peculiar circumstances which seems to be unique for the Rhine. The most important of these circumstances is the international dimension of the situation. The main stem of the Rhine flows through the sovereign territories of Switzerland, the Federal Republic of Germany, France and the Netherlands. Its drainage area, moreover, also covers Italy, Austria, Luxemburg and Belgium. Obviously, no anti-pollution policy can hope to be effective until at least the most directly concerned of these eight States have reached agreement on common objectives and common measures. Reaching agreement, however, is complicated by the problem of conflicting uses which may be more intricate for the Rhine than for any other international river.

The attempt to establish a New International Economic Order (NIEO) during the 1970s was an acrimonious period in international diplomacy and quite clearly failed, in retrospect, to achieve anything like the substantive change envisaged. This article considers one non-governmental attempt to move the debate forward, the 1986 International Law Association (ILA) Declaration on Progressive Development of Principles of Public International Law relating to a New International Economic Order. The article revisits the 1986 Seoul Declaration and considers to what extent its principles of international law remain valid for an economic system that has changed dramatically over the last twenty years. The article concludes that not only is the Seoul Declaration remarkably apposite to the current situation, but it has been re-energised by the emergence of the notion of sustainable development, itself a major topic within the International Law Association. In that sense, the Seoul principles – as now supplemented by the 2002 ILA New Delhi Declaration of Principles of International Law relating to Sustainable Development – remain foundational not only to the functioning of an equitable economic system but also, in the light of changing expectations, a sustainable international community, more generally.