The Netherlands Antilles, formerly called the Netherlands West Indies or Dutch Antilles/West Indies, are among the Lesser Antilles and consist of two groups of islands in the Caribbean Sea: Curaçao and Bonaire, near the coast of Venezuela, and Sint Eustatius, Saba and Sint Maarten, situated to the southeast of the Virgin Islands. These two groups of islands form an autonomous part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Their economy depends mostly upon tourism, international financial services, international commerce and shipping and petroleum.
Plans to establish a new constitutional status and relationship to the Kingdom of the Netherlands has been indefinitely postponed. They follow the Dutch Civil law with some common law influences alleged. Hence reference to the laws of the Netherlands may be useful.