The decisions in this survey are taken from the documentation system of the Public International Law Department of the T.M.C. Asser Instituut, which now contains abstracts from approximately 5650 decisions dating from 1839 to the present day (cf., database on <www.asser.nl/pil/index.htm>)For the period covered updated by research associate M. Ketelaars.. Most of the texts are taken from various Reports and Journals, but the Institute also receives the texts of decisions involving questions of public international law directly from the Courts concerned by special agreement between the Institute, the Ministry of Justice, and the Courts. If the decision has not (yet) been published elsewhere, the source of the text is given as ‘Institute's Collection’ followed by the administrative sequence number.

Although this sets out to be an annual survey, it may also include material which dates from a different parliamentary year from that given in the heading. This has proved to be inevitable in those cases when texts do not become available to the editor until long after their original date of drafting; written submissions to international organizations made by the Netherlands representatives frequently fall into this category.

Most of the information is derived from the Reports of Parliament which are available in Dutch on <www.overheid.nl/op/index.html>. The Yearbook surveys are also available in a consolidated way in a database on <www.asser.nl/pil/index.htm>.