Thank you, Madam President, for this kind introduction. We are here with a delegation from The Hague, and on behalf of the Asser Institute, it was a pleasure for us to organize this panel in cooperation with the municipality and the Royal Dutch Netherlands Embassy. Thank you all for joining us at this Closing Plenary on “Building Trust in International Law and Institutions.”

The development of the international legal system was one of the great achievements of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, based on the principles of multilateralism endorsed at the Hague Peace Conferences, which were the work of Tobias Asser, after whom our institute is named, and his counterparts from Russia, the United States, other European countries, and also, for instance, Uruguay.

The landscape of international cooperation has changed dramatically over the past year, and several panels and sessions at this annual meeting were devoted to these changes. That was, if I may say so as a member of the Society, an excellent choice in your program to do so and to adjust the program also with some new components dealing with recent developments.

The landscape changed dramatically, as I said, with such developments as Brexit, the announced withdrawal of states from the International Criminal Court, and the ongoing political developments in the United States and in Europe that further erode trust, our subject today, in international law and multilateral institutions.

What international law values? That is the theme, of our annual meeting, and that is the theme of this panel as well. Trust, of course, most of all values in international law—trust is the core value and defining purpose of the law altogether, since in any developed society, neither familiarity with others nor subjugation to a supposedly superhuman ruler can guide our behavior. Mankind needs laws and law enforcement. That allows us to coordinate our expectations, establish reciprocity of these expectations, and discourage deviant behavior. The purpose of international law in the relations between states, including their citizens, is no different. However, the systems through which trust is reinforced and maintained are in international law, compared to domestic law, much more desegregated and permanently challenged by international power play and unruly actors. Building and maintaining trust through international law is a complex affair. A research program of our institute is devoted to the legal process and institutions that create and support trust in international relations, which requires, of course, uncovering also the mechanisms that diminish trust.

We are really grateful that we have an excellent panel for an investigative discussion of this subject, trust in international law and institutions. Philip Alston from the New York University School of Law, Maurice Kamto from the Hague Academy for International Law—I thank the Academy also for the cooperation in the preparations of this panel—Judge Bruno Simma from the University of Michigan School of Law, and Judge Christine van den Wyngaert from the International Criminal Court, who will be the first speaker of this panel.

Trust in international law and international relations depends on several requirements, and I hope the panel will be able to deal with these requirements, procedural and substantive requirements, including the rules of investigation, and independence with respect to partial interests.

Trust also depends on the trustworthiness, the trustworthiness of persons in whom we've put our trust, their professionalism and expertise and the righteousness of their mindset. Trust in international law and international relations also depends on the ability to communicate with different groups, peoples, and nations, something that is certainly much more difficult—the more diverse the situations are with which the institutions have to deal. And here I refer once more to the various sessions of this annual meeting in which the interest not only of states and institutions but also those of the victims of crimes against humanity, of infringements on the protection that we pretend to offer through human rights were discussed. That is one of the remarkable changes I think in the program of this panel, of these annual meetings over the years, that the interest has shifted gradually from institutions and states to viewpoints that include persons, victims, persons who also deserve protection by international law. I was as a member of this Society really happy and moved by the way in which various panels dealt with these interests of people who are in danger: victims, downtrodden people.

We will start this session with Baroness Christine van den Wyngaert, a former professor of criminal law at the University of Antwerp, who has served and will continue to serve as a judge in the widest possible variety of courts and tribunals based on The Hague. So she is, although Belgian, certainly a representative of The Hague as the City of Peace and Justice. She was an ad hoc judge at the International Court of Justice in the Yerodia case, a judge at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and since 2009, a judge at the International Criminal Court. And her most recent appointment was that to the Special Chambers of the Kosovo Criminal Court, also based in The Hague. She will open the session with her observations on the role of international criminal law in building and maintaining trust in international relations.

The floor is yours.