BHHRG

The proposed new law has been introduced into the lower house of the Dutch parliament by the Minister of Justice, Bank Korthals, and the Minister of Health, Dr. Els Borst. A provision is to be included in the Netherlands Criminal Code which would provide for the termination of life on request and assistance with suicide would not be punishable if certain criteria were fulfilled. The bill is a consequence of the coalition accord which led to the present coalition government, involving the Labour party and two Liberal parties.
The two conditions under which a physician will not be subject to prosecution are:
The physician must have fulfilled the requirements on due care, as laid down in a separate act, namely the Termination of Life and Request and Assistance with Suicide (Review) Act.

There can be few issues which touch the twin human rights issues of the rule of law and the right to life more deeply than euthanasia. And yet, in a leading European Union country which vaunts its own commitment to the principle of human rights, euthanasia is widely and openly practiced, even though it is against the law.
Introduction
The Dutch seat of government, the Hague, was the place where the first steps were made towards establishing a system of international criminal law: the first attempt at creating a supranational security system was made at the International Peace Conference in the Hague, while a series of conventions on the laws of war were signed at the Hague between 1904 and 1907, marking the preliminary building-blocks for a supranational legal system. Now, the Dutch city is once again in the vanguard of international criminal law, as it hosts the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the court which is expected to give rise, in time, to the International Criminal Court with universal jurisdiction.
Despite this, there are serious grounds for concern that the internationally famous Dutch toleration of euthanasia contradicts the very principles to which the Dutch have proclaimed themselves attached for a century. The Dutch parliament is currently considering a bill to bring the law into line with a quarter of a century of official toleration of euthanasia. However, even this regularization of the legal situation leaves open the more fundamental issues of the right to life and its potential infringement.