Duco Oranje pointed out in his speech that the Dutch have a history of promoting international trade by promoting international law. Hugo Grotius in 1625 wrote “De iure belli ac pacis", the basis of all public international law. The Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907 provided the basic international treaties of international peace. In 1992, the Netherlands modernised its entire Civil Code which has been an example for other countries to this day. The next step was opening the Dutch courts for worldwide litigation by establishing an English-speaking court: the Netherlands Commercial Court. So far, the NCC dealt with a variety of cases: SPA's, distribution agreements, financial agreements, software agreements, and so on. Parties came from all over the world: Belgium, France, Germany, Poland, Greece, United States, United Kingdom, Singapore, Ireland, Malta, Philippines, Turkey, Russia and Switzerland.