This volume of the Netherlands Yearbook of International Law (NYIL) examines general principles of law, which, alongside treaties and customary international law, traditionally form one of the three formal sources of international law, as enshrined in Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The contributions in this volume are situated in the wider discussion on general principles reignited by the recent ILC reports and the reports of the Special Rapporteur on the matter. It aims to be part of a renewed wave of engagement with both the substance and methodology surrounding this mercurial formal source of international law.Diverse functions are attributed to general principles by scholarship and case law: they are a source of various rules which merely form an expression of them; guidelines for a framework for interpretation/application of other rules; lacuna-filling norms; a source of interpretation of treaties and custom; a means for developing new treaties and custom; a supplemental source to treaties and custom; and even a modifier of treaties and custom. ‘General principles’ are here examined through various areas of international law, revealing their deep connections with other sources, overarching concepts such as time and change, and their diverse manifestations across the field.As a double-blind peer-reviewed publication, NYIL offers a forum for the publication of scholarly articles of a conceptual nature in a varying thematic area of public international law. In addition, as of 2012 each volume includes a section entitled ‘Dutch Practice in International Law', which replaces the section previously dedicated to Documentation. The NYIL has been published under the auspices of the T.M.C. Asser Instituut since 1970.
