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 whichthis 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?
