Judge Peter Kooijmans

Abstract

Human rights constitute a challenge that Peter Kooijmans never refused or will refuse, both in his academic and government activities. For a long time he has been in the forefront of those who have struggled for the promotion and protection on human rights for everyone, everywhere in the world. As he said himself: “I myself would not have devoted so much of my time to the cause of human rights […] if I had not believed it to be a just cause and worthy task.“ The issue of human rights first became a major concern for him when he was State Secretary for Foreign Affairs (1973–1977), when he had the Dutch foreign policy within the United Nations (including human rights questions) in his portfolio. It was during that period that the United Nations was gradually changing its course, by shifting the emphasis from standard setting in the field of human rights to supervision over the implementation of international human rights norms. He was then working in the shadow of Max van der Stoel, Minister for Foreign Affairs, who was himself an outspoken protagonist of international human rights. It was Max van der Stoel who, after he had again become Minister for Foreign Affairs during the shortlived Van Agt II cabinet (1981–1982), requested Peter Kooijmans to succeed him as Chairman of the Netherlands' delegation to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, the main political organ of the United Nations in the field of human rights. With his usual sense for realism, Kooijmans once described this Commission as “a crooked stick to make straight stroke”.