The Act of Abjuration (Dutch: Plakkaat van Verlating) of 26 July 1581, with which the States General abjured the King of Spain as their overlord, can be seen as the Dutch Declaration of Independence and is therefore the first of its kind worldwide. This is the conclusion of our board member Anton van Hooff in his book Het Plakkaat van Verlating en de Declaration of Independence, published 26 July 2018, in which he presents the Act of Abjuration to a wider audience.

The Act has all the pathos that characterize such declarations, and, in this respect, it clearly resonates in the American Declaration of Independence of 1776. The appeal to human rights such as popular sovereignty and freedom of conscience makes the Plakkaat van Verlating a unique forerunner of its kind, according to Van Hooff.

It is to the credit of the authors of the Act of Abjuration, as early as 1581, that they have formulated the fundamental right to self-determination of free people in the face of tyranny. That right has become understood as a universal right, and the Act of Abjuration is more and more being recognized as groundbreaking in that process, also in other countries.