Samenvatting

Currently around 35 Dutch adults and 60 children who have a connection with the Netherlands live in camps in North Syria. The Dutch cabinet maintains its inactive policy for years now, which holds that it will not repatriate the adults and the children that travelled to (or were born in) North Syria. The question is to what extent these children and their parents fall under Dutch jurisdiction with respect to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the European Convention on Human Rights, and if so, what obligations would flow from these human rights treaties. Recently, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and the European Court on Human Rights ruled that the government of France has certain obligations towards a group of French adults and children in North Syria. On the basis of these recent views the stance of the Dutch cabinet will be evaluated.