The following translation of the draft of Book 6 of the new Netherlands civil code was prepared by Mrs. E. J. Drion-van Rooyen and Mr. R. H. van Dijk under supervision of Prof. F. H. Lawson, D.C.L., F.B.A., Professor of comparative law at the University of Lancaster. The translation was made by order of the Minister of Justice of the Netherlands, but is not to be considered as an official translation. It was ordered primarily to make this part of the new codification accessible to comparative lawyers who do not understand the Dutch language. The draft may be of considerable interest to them since the drafters made a comprehensive study of comparative law.

The first three paragraphs of article 13 of the Benelux Uniform Law on Conflicts of Law, as revised in 1969, read as follows.

1. In respect both of compulsory and not compulsory legal provisions, contracts shall be governed by the law as chosen by the parties.

2. As far as the contract is clearly localized in a given country, the choice of the parties cannot overrule such legal provisions of the said country as, in virtue of their particular character and purport, exclude the application of any different law.

3. Failing a choice by the parties, either explicit, or implicit but certain, the contract shall be governed by the law of the country with which it shows the narrowest points of contact.

The criticism to these paragraphs as offered in the foregoing paper, does not bear on the principles, as set out above, but on the wording thereof.