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>.

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 7000 decisions dating from 1839 to the present day.*** 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.

*** For the period covered updated by research associates R. Rootert and M. Simmer.

The year 2005 was a significant year in terms of the development, elucidation and enforcement of international humanitarian law. It saw the adoption of a Third Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions introducing a third protective emblem, the publication by the International Committee of the Red Cross (hereafter, ICRC) of its much anticipated study of customary international humanitarian law, and the first ever referral of a situation by the United Nations Security Council (hereafter, Council) to the International Criminal Court.

These positive developments contrasted with widespread violations of humanitarian law in a number of major and minor armed conflicts and in the context of the so-called ‘war on terrorism’.