A Note from Melissa

I don’t know about everyone else, but I am exhausted! We were out the door this morning promptly at 7:30. The tram came just a couple of minutes after we got to the stop; perfect! We took the tram to Centraal Station and caught the train for Voorburg, just outside Den Haag. We had to change trains in Den Haag. Ideally we would have made it from platform 12 to platform 4 in the five allotted minutes, but, with the crowd and 14 people trying to stick together, just as we got to the platform the train was pulling away. Fortunately the next train was leaving in just a few minutes so we made it to Voorburg at 9:35. We were supposed to be at the visitors’ security door of the International Criminal Court at 9:50 and we made it.

Assisted by a nice security officer from Britain, we went through security, showed our passports, and waited in a lounge area. I made a quick trip to the restroom and, upon returning, learned that one of the students was missing his/her passport. Fortunately Kari had been able to vouch for him/her and all was fine for the moment. Note: The passport has not turned up and they will be making a trip to the consulate in the morning.

We were then met by a nice young Frenchman, the visit coordinator, who took us to the press briefing room for the beginning of our presentation. There was our group, a group of international students studying in the Netherlands, and a young woman who is a law student at the University of British Columbia, but studying for a term in Maastricht. We received very nice info packets and heard about the overall make-up of the Court, history, process, etc. After a short break we heard from Hans-Peter Kaul, one of the 19 judges of the ICC and President of the Pre-Trial Division of the Court. That was very cool, I think.

After his presentation and taking of questions, we were taken to the visitor’s gallery or “public area” of the largest of the three courtrooms. Our host explained who sat where and told us that the two “working languages” of the Court are French and English, but that Arabic, Russian, Chinese, and, I believe, Spanish, are the other “official” languages of the Court. He explained how someone could be a witness and not be identified, how the Court aims to be paperless, etc. It was great, but we were running quite late for our next appointment and I was pretty much, as my friends might imagine, having major anxiety at that point!

We left the building and made it back to the train station, just across a small park. Of course, while you can usually set your watch by Dutch trains, the train was 12 minutes late! We arrived in the Den Haag for our 12:30 appointment around 1:15. Fortunately our destination, the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI), was just a few blocks away.

Our host, Deputy Director Nico van Nimwegen, was very gracious when I apologized profusely for our tardiness. They had generously provided a spread of rolls, cheeses, ham, salad, soup, milk, and coffee for lunch. It is probably fair to say that that was the most exciting moment of the day for most of the students. Enough said.

Drs. Van Nimwegen gave a presentation on some of the demographic information most relevant to policy studies; i.e., fertility and mortality rates. It was terrific in that even students who had not had an introduction to demographics should have been able to follow. After a short break for “seconds” he segued into a discussion of various policy issues (e.g., employment, immigration) for which demographic knowledge is key and talked about the interplay between demographics and policy. I thought it was great! It would have been nice to have this presentation closer to the beginning of our visit, but, unfortunately, between the holidays this time of year and other commitments we have to take what we can get!

When we finished at NIDI we walked over to the central courtyard of the Binnenhof, the home of the Dutch parliament. I had been thinking, mistakenly, that this was where the queen resides, but that, in fact, is the Paleis Noordeinde, which we did not visit. At this point, having left the hotel at 7:30, raced for trains and to meetings, and listened to two different presentations, we split up for an hour’s wandering through Den Haag. I suggested some people watching as Den Haag is a very different city from Amsterdam! At 5:00, having had a variety of refreshments – I opted for a tiramisu eis – we met at Centraal Station and headed back “home.”

Tomorrow we are taking the students to Zandvoort, a seaside vacation spot, and then to Haarlem, so that they are sure to see a couple of other areas besides the “big city.” Wish us good weather!