Tjaco van den Hout

Tjaco van den Hout is a visiting professorial fellow at the Riga Graduate School of Law (RGSL) where he teaches in a variety of subjects in both the Bachelor’s and the Master’s programme, ranging from European Legal History and Roman Law to International Adjudication and International Investment Law. He has lectured at other institutions including the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga (SSE-R) and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

Mr. van den Hout served as deputy secretary-general of the Netherlands Foreign Ministry from 1997 until 1999, and as secretary-general of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague (www.pca-cpa.org) from 1999 until 2008. Upon his return to diplomatic service in 2008, he was appointed Netherlands ambassador to Thailand, Myanmar (Burma), Cambodia and Laos. He retired from service in the middle of 2011 to be with his family in Riga where his wife Baiba Braze at the time assumed a senior position at the Latvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 

Up to the summer of 2023 he lived with his family in Brussels where his wife served as an Assistant Secretary-General to NATO after an earlier 4 year posting in London as Latvia’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom. They have now returned to Riga where his wife serves as Latvia’s Foreign Minister.