HCCH Secretary General Officier de l'Ordre National du Mérite
At a reception given at her residence on 30 November 2004, the Ambassador of France to the Netherlands, Her Excellency Mrs Anne Gazeau-Secret, on behalf of the President of the French Republic, conferred on Mr Hans van Loon, Secretary General of the Hague Conference on Private International Law, the insignia of Officier de l'Ordre National du Mérite.
On the same occasion, the French Ambassador conferred the insignia of Officier de la Légion d'honneur upon Mr W.E. Haak, former President of the Supreme Court of the Netherlands, and the insignia of Officier de l'Ordre National du Mérite on Professor Kortmann, Professor of Law at Nijmegen University.
Present at the ceremony were several Ambassadors at The Hague, Judges Parra-Aranguren (International Court of Justice) and Pocar (International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia), Secretary General Mr Majoor of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, members of the Dutch Supreme Court, President Struycken of the Netherlands Standing Government Committee on Private International Law and several members of that Committee, and the members of the Permanent Bureau of the Hague Conference.