Privileges and immunities of international organizations in the case law of Dutch courts

In this paper we review the case law of the courts of the Netherlands on the privileges and immunities of international organizations and their officials and identify to what extent the courts in this case law have engaged in transnational judicial dialogue. On substance, we argue that Netherland’s case law displays quite an isolated position on both the sources of the immunity of international organizations (holding that this is a rule of customary international law) as well as on its scope. As to dialogue, we find that the amount of dialogue with foreign courts is extremely limited, casting some doubt on assertions in much of modern literature on the topic that argues that dialogues are on the rise. We then explore the connection between the rather peculiar substantive position and the lack of dialogue: does the Netherlands takes quite an isolated position on the immunity rule because its courts do not take cognizance of foreign case law, or, in the alternative, do the Dutch courts not refer to foreign case law that they have taken cognizance of because it does not support their position?