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The current exemption allowing Japanese nationals to work in the Netherlands without formal work authorization will end October 1, 2016. After this deadline, Japanese workers will need to obtain work permits prior to engaging in work activities or assignments in the country. The current work permit exemption for Japanese nationals is a result of a December 24, 2014 ruling by the Administrative Jurisdiction Division of the Council of State, the highest Dutch immigration court.  The court based that ruling on the 1913 Treaty of Commerce and Navigation signed between the Netherlands and Japan wherein Japan was given “most-favored nation” status. The court then compared that treaty to the similar Dutch-Swiss Friendship Treaty of 1875 which had been interpreted to exempt citizens of Switzerland from the Netherland’s work permit requirement since 2001. It then reasoned that the same exemption must apply to Japanese citizens. Thus, for the past two years, Japanese ...

Minister Koenders' shot at the Swiss Treaty deflects in own goal Published on July 3, 2016 Julien Luscuere Attorney at law, Dutch and European immigration and employment prof. Joseph Fleuren: "Explanation of new interpretation is untruthful and misleading" This week Mr Joseph Fleuren , associate professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Nijmegen  and an authority on self-executing treaty provisions, has published a memorandum about the recent administrative developments around the Dutch-Swiss Friendship treaty , that also concerns the position of Japanese citizens. In a well elaborated review of the correspondence of the Dutch and Swiss government, Mr Fleuren firstly remarks that the recent "interpretation" of provision 1 of the Swiss Treaty clearly deviates from the text of the provision itself. Referring to the additional protocol of 1877 that later was agreed by the parties, the professor points out that there can be no dou...

Today the Dutch Immigration Office (IND) announced on its website a remarkable policy change starting on 1 October 2016. Referring to a yesterday published correspondence between the embassy of the Netherlands, under the responsibility of Minister Bert Koenders, and the Swiss Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it states that an "interpretation" of the Dutch-Switzerland Friendship treaty will revoke the present exemption of the work permit requirement towards Japanese citizens. Free access The free access of the Japanese to the Dutch labour market, and other legal benefits concerning their residence, was theoretically confirmed in the elaborated ruling of the Dutch Counsel of State of 19 June 2013 , that attracted little attention. However, founded explicitly on the proclamation of the IND at the hearing about the status and implementations of the Swiss treaty, it bared a groundbreaking conclusion that Japanese are equaled to Swiss nationals, who alre...