The Netherlands Yearbook of International Law was first published in
1970. It offers a forum for the publication of scholarly articles of a
more general nature in the area of public international law including
the law of the european Union.
One of the key functions or purposes of international law (and law in
general for that matter) is to provide long-term stability and legal
certainty. Yet, international legal rules may also function as tools to
deal with non-permanent or constantly changing issues and rather than
stable, international law may have to be flexible or adaptive. Prima
facie, one could think of two main types of temporary aspects relevant
from the perspective of international law. First, the nature of the
object addressed by international law or the 'problem' that
international law aims to address may be inherently temporary
(temporary objects). Second, a subject of international law may be
created for a specific period of time, after the elapse of which this
entity ceases to exist (temporary subjects). These types of
temporariness raise several questions from the perspective of
international law, which are hardly addressed from a more conceptual
perspective. This volume of the Netherlands Yearbook of International
Law aims to do exactly that by asking the question of how international
law reacts to various types of temporary issues. Put differently, where
does international law stand on the continuum of predictability and
pragmatism when it comes to temporary issues or institutions?
