Interview with Prof. Theo van Boven

• Author: Jef Croonen, Jan Jippe Arends
• Pages: 29-32

Often you are mentioned and praised as one of the three

main defenders of Human Rights within the Netherlands,

together with Max van der Stoel and Peter Kooijmans.

What do you think of the cur rent Dutch human rights

policy? Our for eign affairs minister, Maxime Verhagen,

recently stated that he is of the opinion that the Dutch

human rights policy is very good.

Indeed, Minister Verhagen claims that he put

the Dutch human rights policy on track. That

neglects the fact that his predecessors, amongst

them van der Stoel and Kooijmans, have also

contributed greatly to the current Dutch policy.

Verhagen has articulated the Dutch human

rights policy in a memorandum, which includes

many good items, but it continues and builds

upon a rm base which was already laid out by

his predecessors.

Yet there are some points of critique. In the

rst place there seems to be lacking a good

connection between national and foreign human

rights policy. There are some good initiatives

abroad, yet national consequences are not always

dealt with. Especially when looking to policies

concerning refugees, immigrants, and asylum.

Another point of critique is that the foreign

human rights-policy is not integrated enough

with economical and nancial matters. This has

its consequences for the ministry of foreign

affairs, but also for the ministries of education

and economic affairs and also the treasury.

There is, however, a human rights ambassador,

who does a wonderful job, but I believe he has

too few possibilities to promote to the foreign

affairs human rights policy and embed it with the

policies of the specialized ministries of welfare,

economic affairs and the treasury. This has never

been the case, but here is room for improvement.

So you would like to sug gest that the different

postitionspositions on human rights, depending on the

various ministries, should better be integrated. For

example with the visit of Dutch Minister de Jager recently

to China or the visit of Dutch Minister van der Hoeven

to Eastern Russia?

Professor van Boven has been, amongst others, director of the United Nations’ Division

for Human Rights, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Reparation to Victims of

Gross Violations of Human Rights, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, a member of

the International Commission of Jurists and has been the rst registrar of the Internati-

onal Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

Jef Croonen & Jan Jippe Arends

THEO VAN BOVEN

Merkourios - European Contract Law - Vol. 27/71 29

‘the foreign Hu-

man Rights-policy

is not integrated

enough with econo-

mical and nancial

matters.’

Merkourios 2010 – Volume 27/Issue 71, Interview, pp. 29-32.

URN: NBN:NL:UI:10-1-100921

ISSN: 0927-460X

URL: www.merkourios.org

Publisher: Igitur, Utrecht Publishing & Archiving Services

Copyright: this work has been licensed by the Creative Commons Attribution License (3.0)

Interview