28 September 2011: International Right To Know Day (03-10-2011)
THE HAGUE. On 28 September 2011 conferences and debates were held all over the world to celebrate the Right To Know Day (RTK Day). The focus of the events is the importance of the right to information. Internationally, RTK Day began on 28 September 2002 in Sofia, Bulgaria at an international meeting of access to information advocates who pr...

Issues of Dutch PKIOverheid certificates compromised: major impact on privacy for internet users (07-09-2011)
THE HAGUE. On 5 September 2011 the Dutch Minister of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, Mr. Donner, announced that issue of PKIOverheid certificates by the company DigiNotar had been compromised. These certificates serve to provide a reliable identification of websites (the “padlock”) and secure mutual traffic between computers. A digital burgl...

Court of Appeal The Hague: The State of the Netherlands is responsible for the death of three Muslim men after the fall of Srebrenica (18-07-2011)
THE HAGUE. On 5 July 2011 the Court of Appeal of The Hague passed judgment on appeal on the question whether the State is responsible for the death of three Muslim men in 1995. The men had sought refuge in the Dutchbat compound but were later murdered by the Bosnian Serbs under the command of General Mladi?. The Court judges that the State is re...

European Court of Human Rights: Seizure of Dutch journalist’s confidential photographs illegal (07-10-2010)
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) decided in a Grand Chamber judgment on 14 September 2010, that the seizure of a journalist’s confidential photographs by the Dutch police was illegal. Sanoma Uitgevers B.V., a Dutch publishing company, took their case to the ECHR after police seized photographs taken during an illegal car race, whi...

ECHR: Dutch businessman properly convicted by Dutch court as an accomplice in Iraqi Mustard Gas Attack (12-08-2010)
STRASBOURG. On July 6, 2010, the European Court of Human Rights (‘the Court’) declared that the application, lodged by Dutch businessman Frans van Anraat against the Netherlands, was inadmissible. In the 1980s, Van Anraat supplied the Iraqi government with the chemical thiodiglycol, used to produce mustard gas. He became Iraq’s sole suppl...