‘Error is the mark of the higher organisms’. This statement struck me again when, composing myself to the honourable and pleasant task of preparing a contribution to the Liber Amicorum for my learned friend Bert Voskuil, I reconsidered ‘the Case of Zaire’, a case which raised the question whether and to what extent a judicial error was committed by the Dutch court that declared a foreign State bankrupt. If the judgment has to be considered an error of law, that court certainly qualified as a ‘higher organism’.
Let us first look at the facts of the case.