The present volume is the product of several years of research at the
Institute for International Law of the Catholic University of Leuven,
culminating in the defence of a doctoral thesis in October 2009.
It has been made possible through the valued financial support of the
Fund for Scientific Research Flanders (Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk
Onderzoek Vlaanderen) as well as the even more valued moral support
of my ever-energetic supervisor, Professor Jan Wouters. I thank my
colleagues at the Institute for International Law and the Leuven Centre
for Global Governance Studies for a very fruitful and most gratifying
cooperation, in particular the former occupants of the ‘International
House’ Dominic, Bruno, and Maarten, as well as Bart, Sten, Cedric,
Fred and Viviane.
I also wish to specifically thank several persons, who, in various ways,
supported or inspired me during the task ahead, notably Ambassador Johan
Verbeke and his former team at the Belgian Permanent Representation at the
United Nations inNew York, ProfessorMichael Reisman of Yale Law School,
Professors Christine Gray (Cambridge), Olivier Corten (Universite´ Libre
de Bruxelles) and Dino Kritsiotis (University of Nottingham), as well as the
Leuven faculty members who, with Professor Wouters, granted me the
honour of serving onmy doctoral jury, Stephan Parmentier and Luc Reychler.
My warmest thanks to my parents for their unremitting support and
for instilling in me sufficient perseverance to cope with prolonged
sojourns in the dusty catacombs of the Leuven university library.