The Burgerlijk Wetboek (or BW) is the Civil Code of the Netherlands. Early versions were largely based on the Napoleonic Code. The Dutch Civil Code was substantively reformed in 1992. The Code deals with the rights of natural persons (Book 1), legal persons (Book 2), patrimony (Book 3) and succession (Book 4). It also sets out the law of property (e.g., ownership, possession, and security interests) (Book 5), obligations (Book 6) and contracts (Book 7), and conflict of laws (Book 10). Proposed amendments will add a Book on intellectual property.
The codification of laws is still being used in Indonesia as a pinnacle of the private laws besides Sharia law and custom laws. The laws initially applied only to Dutch settlers and foreign traders, such as Chinese traders, Indian traders and Arab traders during the Dutch colonial era in Dutch East Indies, but after the independence of Indonesia in 1945, the government decided to retain the old Dutch law, expanded in use to indigenous people and Muslims voluntarily. The 1992 reformed version does not apply in Indonesia.
