The decisions in this survey are taken from the documentation system of the Public International Law Department of the T.M.C. Asser Instituut, which now contains abstracts from approximately 6000 decisions dating from 1839 to the present day.*** Most of the texts are taken from various Reports and Journals, but the Institute also receives the texts of decisions involving questions of public international law directly from the Courts concerned by special agreement between the Institute, the Ministry of Justice, and the Courts. If the decision has not (yet) been published elsewhere, the source of the text is given as ‘Institute's Collection’ followed by the administrative sequence number.

Not all the decisions in the documentation system of the Institute are included in this survey. Some are left out because they contain very minor points of (international) law. Those decisions which are included are given either in an extensive form, with verbatim extracts from the judgment, or in a summarized form, depending on their relevance to international law.

A two-year period is covered by the survey, one year of which overlaps the period covered by the survey in last year's volume of the NYIL. This is made necessary by the fact that the text of the decisions is sometimes available only after a considerable time. This is also why, by way of exception, decisions are occasionally included although given at a time prior to the period covered by the survey.

The Yearbook surveys are also available in a consolidated way in a separate database on <www.asser.nl>

*** For the period covered updated by research associate L. Wannet.