This volume of the Netherlands Yearbook of International Law (NYIL) is
the fiftieth in the Series, which means that the NYIL has now been with
us for half a century. The editors decided not to let this moment go by
unnoticed, but to devote this year's edition to an analysis of the
phenomenon of yearbooks in international law.
Once the decision was made that this would be the subject of this year's
NYIL, the editors asked themselves a number of questions. For instance:
Not many academic disciplines have yearbooks, so what is the reason we
do? What is the added value of having a yearbook alongside the abundance
of international law journals, regular monographs and edited volumes
that are published on a yearly basis? Does the existence of yearbooks
tell us something about who we are, or who we think we are, or what we
have to contribute to the world? These questions will be addressed both
in a general and in a specific sense, whereby a number of yearbooks
published all over the world will be looked at in further detail.
The Netherlands Yearbook of International Law was first published in
1970. It offers a forum for the publication of scholarly articles in a
varying thematic area of public international law.