Tjaco Theo van den Hout, former Deputy Secretary General of the Dutch Foreign Ministry and Ambassador of the Netherlands to Thailand, Myanmar (Burma), Cambodia and Laos, served from 1999 until 2008 as Secretary-General of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA). The PCA is an international treaty-based organization devoted to the peaceful settlement of international disputes (www.pca-cpa.org). It is headquartered together with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Peace Palace at The Hague.