Decem Lustra: Kees van Raad celebrates almost 50 years of teaching international tax law
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Almost 50 years ago, professor emeritus Kees van Raad started teaching international tax law. This special anniversary was celebrated on Friday 28 August with a symposium in the Cleveringa auditorium attended by over 200 alumni from all corners of the world.
Van Raad started his teaching career at the former NIVRA (the Netherlands Institute of Chartered Accountants) and the Dutch Federation of Tax Advisers, and from 1978 also at Leiden University. The symposium was part of a two-day lustrum gathering of alumni of the International Tax Center Leiden (ITC).
Pioneer years
When Van Raad returned to his alma mater in 1975 to teach international tax law, the field barely existed. Apart from a single doctoral dissertation from 1946, virtually nothing had been published on the subject. As he put it himself, ‘in the beginning’ there were hardly any written materials – no textbooks, no primary sources, no collected volumes. He developed the field himself from the ground up: the teaching materials he initially compiled amounted to 50 pages; today they are closer to 1000 pages.
Jan van de Streek, Professor of Tax Law and Head of the department, looked back on those early years. ‘You helped pioneer the field of international tax law, and that field has become your life's work’, he said. ‘To this day you continue to teach all over the world, to write and to practise law, so I understand you never felt the need to look back on your career.’
Four perspectives on treaty interpretation
The academic backbone of the afternoon was provided by four short lectures from former ITC lecturers, all international authorities on the interpretation of tax treaties: John F. Avery Jones CBE (London School of Economics), Wei Cui (University of British Columbia), Malcolm Gammie KC (tax barrister at One Essex Court, former Unilever Professor in Leiden) and Johann Hattingh (University of Cape Town). They explored how courts and lawmakers across different jurisdiction approach the OECD Model Tax Convention, the weight accorded to its Commentaries, and the tension between technical interpretation and constitutional principles. These are questions to which Van Raad's own work has contributed for many decades.
Decem Lustra
The floor was then given to Tanja Bender, who herself has recently retired, and who worked closely with Van Raad for a long time. She was once one of his first PhD candidates and later became the second Professor of International Tax Law at Leiden. Bender reflected on the reach of Van Raad's work: several thousand Leiden tax students have benefited from his teaching over the years, hundreds of ITC alumni have brought his way of thinking to universities, governments, courts and international organisations across the world. Generations of tax professionals still consult his Cursus Internationaal Belastingrecht, the Pocket Belastingverdragen and the Materials volumes on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis.
Together with alum Renata Fontana, Bender then presented Van Raad with a liber amicorum: Decem Lustra: Essays and Personal Reflections in honour of Kees van Raad, published by ITC Leiden. The initiative to prepare a liber amicorum immediately attracted widespread support resulting in a book containing contributions from more than 200 (former) colleagues, spanning no fewer than 870 pages. The title is Latin for ‘ten lustra’, 50 years, acknowledging Van Raad's love of Roman law and of the Latin language in general.
‘In that sense, the Liber is a reflection of Kees himself,’ Bender said. ‘Academically rigorous, internationally oriented, and connected to an extraordinarily broad community of people. But it is also a reflection of his lasting impact on international tax law.’
‘Prepare for a cold plunge’
After the various speakers had had their say, the closing words belonged to Van Raad himself. In his address, Van Raad looked back briefly, but mostly ahead. He recalled his first encounter with the field: a Fulbright scholarship that took him by ship to the United States in 1967, followed by an LL.M. year at Georgetown University in 1969.
Now, 50 years on, he argued that the field is facing another fundamental shift. In December 2022, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution that questions the OECD's decades-old role as policy setter of international tax law. The draft convention that has emerged from it contains, according to Van Raad, ideas that will ‘profoundly’ change the existing order. ‘As we say in the Netherlands: prepare yourself for a very cold plunge.’
Congratulations from Dean Suzan Stoter
‘The world was so big in the 1970s. And Leiden was relatively small. Over the past 50 years, you have made the world smaller and Leiden bigger. In the late 1960s, not many Dutch law students travelled to America to continue their studies after graduating. You were an exception. You went to Washington DC on a scholarship to attend the LL.M. programme at Georgetown University. At that time, international tax law had barely emerged as a distinct discipline anywhere in the world. You were a pioneer in a field that has since become immensely important.
In 1998, you established the International Tax Center at Leiden University to offer an Advanced LL.M. programme to students from across the world. You limited admission to 40 students a year because you wanted to get to know each other personally. The Advanced LL.M. has served as a model for the various Advanced LL.M. programmes Leiden Law School has launched. The programme currently has well over 800 alumni from all over the world. One of my predecessors told me that when he was abroad for a lecture or conference, his hosts would say: “Oh, you're from Leiden; that's where Kees van Raad is based.”
Dear Professor van Raad, for 50 years and more, you have been a visionary, a pioneer, a result-oriented perfectionist, an ambassador, a wonderful teacher and a remarkable individual. On behalf of Leiden Law School, I congratulate you on all your achievements, and I would like to express my deep gratitude for all you have done for our university and Leiden Law School.’