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==Human rights==
===Council of Europe===
The Netherlands became a founder-member of the [https://www.coe.int/en/web/portal Council of Europe] on 5 May 1949 and therefore subject to the [https://rm.coe.int/1680a2353d ''European Convention on Human Rights''] (1950). Under that ''Convention'' the Netherlands may be sued in the [https://www.echr.coe.int/Pages/home.aspx?p=home&c European Court of Human Rights] (Strasbourg) for alleged human rights violations.
Certain parts of the Convention seem applicable to the non-therapeutic circumcision of minor boys:
* Article 3: Freedom from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment
* Article 5: Everyone has a right to liberty and security of person.
* Article 8: Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.
Resolution no. 1952 (2013) 'Children's right to physical integrity' of the Parliament Assembly of the Council of Europe, which includes the issue of physical integrity of intersex children for the first time, was adopted on October 1, 2013 following an initiative of the German SPD politician [[Marlene Rupprecht]].<ref name="aktor2016">{{REFbook
|last=Aktor
|first=Mikael
|author-link=Mikael Aktor
|last2=
|first2=
|author2-link=
|year=2016
|title=Whose Rights? The Danish Debate on Ritual Infant Male Circumcision as a Human Rights Issue
|url=https://www.academia.edu/22644864
|work=Contemporary Views on Comparative Religion: In Celebration of Tim Jensen's 65th Birthday
|editor=Peter Antes, Armin W. Geertz, Mikael Rothstein
|edition=
|volume=
|chapter=24
|pages=311-24
|location=Sheffield
|publisher=Equinox Publishing
|isbn=9781781791394
|quote=
|accessdate=2021-09-12
|note=
}}</ref>
The resolution includes other topics such as the [[FGM|female genital mutilation]], the [[MGM|male circumcision]] for religious reasons, and the submission or coercion of a child to piercings, tattoos or cosmetic surgery.
The resolution calls on all member States to "''examine the prevalence of different categories of non-medically justified operations and interventions impacting on the physical integrity of children in their respective countries, as well as the specific practices related to them, and to carefully consider them in light of the best interests of the child in order to define specific lines of action for each of them; initiate focused awareness-raising measures for each of these categories of violation of the physical integrity of children, to be carried out in the specific contexts where information may best be conveyed to families, such as the medical sector (hospitals and individual practitioners), schools, religious communities or service providers; [...].''"
This first resolution of its kind by a European institution is not legally binding, but an important signal for further debate and action. It shifts the approach of the point of view of the topic from the current medical domain towards a [[human rights]] approach and identifies the right to bodily integrity, autonomy and self-determination. It calls the for the end of non-therapeutic cosmetic medical and surgical interventions.<ref name="resolution1952" />
===Netherlands Institute of Human Rights===
The [https://www.govserv.org/NL/Utrecht/703482366345976/Netherlands-Institute-of-Human-Rights---SIM Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM)] is a part of the [https://www.uu.nl/en/organisation/utrecht-university-school-of-law University of Utrecht School of Law]. SIM (1998) issued a very strong statement against child circumcision.<ref name="smith1998">{{REFbook