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.

In this book, author Otto Spijkers describes how moral values determined the founding of the United Nations Organization in 1945, and the evolution of its purposes, principles, and policies since then. A detailed examination of the proceedings of the UN Conference on International Organization in San Francisco demonstrates that the drafting of the UN Charter was significantly influenced by global moral values, i.e. globally-shared beliefs distinguishing right from wrong, good from bad, and the current from a preferable state-of-the-world. A common desire - to eradicate war, poverty, inhuman treatment, and to halt the exploitation of peoples - has led to an affirmation of the values of peace and security, social progress and development, human dignity, and the self-determination of all peoples. All these values ended up in the UN Charter. The book further analyzes how the UN, and especially its General Assembly, has continued to influence the maturing of global morality through contributions to the values debate, and to the translation of these values into the language of international law, including the law on the use of force, sustainable development, human rights, and the right to self-determination. (Series: School of Human Rights Research - Vol. 47)

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.