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...

UN declares the right to water and sanitation to be a human right (05-08-2010)
NEW YORK. On July 28 2010, the United Nations General Assembly (GA) declared that the right to clean water and proper sanitation is a human right. Currently, around 844 million people do not have access to clean water, and 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation facilities. This causes approximately 1.5 million deaths each year in children unde...

Dutch Supreme Court quashes earlier judgment concerning war crimes in Liberia (06-05-2010)
On April 20 2010, the Dutch Supreme Court (Hoge Raad) examined a judgment by the Court of Appeals of The Hague concerning the alleged involvement in war crimes by a Dutch national. The Hoge Raad eventually quashed the earlier judgment, stating that the request of the public prosecution office to refer the case to the examining magistrate to hea...

UN Human Rights Committee examines civil and political rights implementation in the Netherlands (23-07-2009)
GENEVA. The United Nations Human Rights Committee has examined the implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in the Netherlands. In addition to the 4th periodic report of the Dutch government, a group of Dutch NGOs submitted a so-called shadow report and an addendum to this report to inform the Committee ...

Supreme Court of The Netherlands: conviction Van A. for supplying mustard gas to Saddam Hussein (06-07-2009)
THE HAGUE. On 30 June 2009 the Supreme Court of The Netherlands ruled that a businessman, Van A., had been rightfully charged an accessory to the violations of the laws and customs of war, resulting in killings and inflicting grievous bodily harm. The Supreme Court also ruled that a Dutch Court has jurisdiction to judge a case concerning crimin...