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eason enjoys immunity from jurisdiction’ (see paragraph 262 of the Judgment). Theposition of the State of the Netherlands also reappears in these proceedings. The DistrictCourt also gave its judgment in line with the grounds quoted. Both the Advocate-Generaland the Court of Justice gave short shrift to the position quoted.Opinion of Advocate-General to the Court of Justice of the EU203. Advocate-General M. Poiares Maduro expressed his view of the Al-Barakat Case in hisOpinion of 23 January 2008. The Opinion is instructive to read and presents a well-foundedview of the European Community legal order in relation to other international obligations.The Association et al. cannot here neglect to refer to the Advisory Opinion of the PublicProsecutor’s Department of 7 November 2007 and its Memorandum of Pleadings of 18 June2008. As was observed at the hearing of 18 June 2008 at the time of the rejoinder, theAdvisory Opinion of the Public Prosecutor’s Department should have had the character of alegal opinion. The Opinion of Advocate-General Poiares Maduro is a good example of such anopinion before a court: reasoned and conscious of the interests of both sides. In contrastwith that, the few pages submitted in these proceedings by the Public Prosecutor’sDepartment cannot withstand even the most minimal criticism. It is a one-sided documentin which the position of the State of the Netherlands and the United Nations is adoptedalmost literally but without any mention of the extensive reasoning of the Association et al.The Public Prosecutor’s Department has not only ignored the great importance of this case,which raises the issue of where the responsibility for allowing genocide lies, but also actedcontrary to the legal tradition governing the submission of an Advisory Opinion by the PublicProsecutor’s Department.204. As there is little to add to the Opinion of Advocate-General Poiares Maduro, the Associationet al. here cites a number of core considerations:‘21. The logical starting point of our discussion should, of course, be the landmarkruling in Van Gend en Loos, in which the Court affirmed the autonomy of theCommunity legal order. The Court held that the Treaty is not merely an agreementbetween States, but an agreement between the peoples of Europe. It consideredthat the Treaty had established a ‘new legal order’, beholden to, but distinct fromthe existing legal order of public international law. In other words, the Treaty has© Van Diepen Van der Kroef Advocaten page 86 of 99