WELCOME TO THE RÖLING FOUNDATION WEB SITE 
 
OUR MAIN ACTIVITIES:

1) The Foundation yearly supports the Peace Palace Library with a significant grant.

The Peace Palace Library is situated in The Hague, and serves the ICJ, the PCA as well as the many students who either follow one or two of the courses of the Institut de Droit International de la Haye or otherwise make use of the Library (for details, see The Hague, Legal Capital of the World, 2005, ISBN 90-6704-185-8, pp. 529-539). 

2) Following the success with the Röling prizes, handed out in the 1980s, the Foundation has since 2003 embarked on the Röling-Webster prize, a yearly prize for the best Webster University Leiden student paper or thesis on an international law related subject. 
The ceremony coincides with Webster’s yearly graduation ceremony at the Pieterskerk, Leiden, the Netherlands. The prize consists of a substantial financial grant.

As from 2008 this USD1000 prize has been renamed the Akkerman-Webster Prize, in memory of the Foundation’s first co-chair (assassinated in Tunis, 1991, just days before the end of the first Gulf War).

The winner for 2009:

    2009: Mr. Alon de Lieme is the winner of the 2009 prize ($1000). Not only did he submit during the last couple of semesters some excellent papers on e.g. globalization (islamic radicalization) and humanitarian issues (cluster bombs), - two issues closely related to the interests and work of the late Akkerman as well - but in particular the way he virtually single-handedly organized the November 2008 remembrance of the Kristallnacht 1938 in and around the Amsterdam Opera makes him a well-deserved winner.

    2008: The 2008 Prize was shared by two promising young students:

    - Alastair Sadler for his (graduate) paper The London Bombings, posing the question “what is to be gained from martyrdom” and in which he provides a precise analysis of possible ‘causal elements’; and

    - Angelea Selleck for her (undergraduate) paper on the ICC and the USA, in which she describes the need and possibilities for US engagement in the work of the International Criminal Court

    2007: Tania Tate, for her thesis "Why did industrialization fail in Iran, but succeed in South Korea?" in which she sets sets out to discover why a poverty-stricken country devastated by war was able to industrialize, transform its entire economic structure, and eventually embrace democracy, while a country theoretically rich in resources remains mired in inequality and backwardness.

    2006: Erica Passini, for her (graduate level) paper on the Foibe Genocide, in which she provides an in-depth analysis of the gruesome events that took place in Istria and Dalmatia, 1943-1946.

    2005: Julia T. Wagschal for her international relations M.A. thesis on Palestinian Refugees: piecing together a compromise solution

    2004: Nicole Teague for her thought-provoking undergraduate paper on the relationship migration-culture

    2003: Kori Pfundheller for her paper on the UN Charter’s art. 33 and the efforts to contain the conflict in Yugoslavia

For information on Webster University, Leiden, see: www.webster.nl  
 
 

3) The Foundation supports research and other activities geared towards conflict management, where the Charter’s art. 33.1 stands central: 
The parties to any dispute, the continuance of which is likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security, shall, first of all, seek a solution by negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means of their own choice.

Some examples:

- A 2002 financial support was granted for the preparation and publication of The Declaration of The Hague on the Future of Refugee and Migration Policy.

- In 2003, the Foundation contributed to an AWR study on integration of migrants into the EU, commissioned by the European Commission and published in Michael Wollenschläger (ed.) Asylum and Integration in Member States of the EU (Integration of Recognized Refugee Families as Defined by the Geneva Convention Considering their Status with the Respect to the Law of Residence) Berlin 2003, 281-344. 
 
- Yet another grant was agreed upon in 2005 to support research and publication of an in-depth study into the war cemetery in Oegstgeest, the Netherlands.  
See: Freek Lugt, in cooperation with Dick Breedijk and Frits Th.M. Spieksma, Oorlogsgraven in Oegstgeest, published by the Oorlogsgravencomité Oegstgeest (see also below) 
 
- Various activities were undertaken cq are being undertaken in South East Asia for the dissemination and status of international law, including international cultural heritage law 2006-2010. See inter alia http://www.hurilink.org/lao_detail.php, http://www.ilp.gov.la, and in particular the RF-supported newsletter: http://www.ilp.gov.la/newsletter.asp.

- The Röling Foundation also provides (administrative) support to related fund/programmes, such as (a) Ogcom (Oegstgeest War Cemetery); (b) AWR (Azië Wetenschappelijk Research; and (c) Edukas (International Education Fund)

Students, scholars or researchers are welcome to submit requests for grants and/or loans. 

4) Seminars

The Röling Foundation, together with Webster University Leiden and in association with the Hague Academic Coalition, organized, at the occasion of the launch of the Volume THE HAGUE, LEGAL CAPITAL OF THE WORLD (Asser Press / Cambridge University Press, 2005, ISBN 90-6704-185-8) a seminar at the Peace Palace, February 24th, 2005. 
Speakers included Schrijver, Fodha, van der Hout, van Kesteren, Muller and Tabassi/Spence. The seminar was co-chaired by Van Hoogstraten and Van Krieken and focused on the role of the Hague-based institutions and organizations, especially in light of plans and proposals to reform the UN. 

5) Publications

The Foundation supports publications in the field of international law, humanitarian law, human rights, refugee and migration law as well as cultural heritage law.

For details see under ‘publications’.