Van Agt continued to comment on political affairs as a statesman until he suffered a major stroke in May 2019 which forced him to undergo rehabilitation.

Andreas Antonius Maria van Agt was born in Geldrop in the province of North Brabant in a Roman Catholic family.

With Van Agt as its lead candidate, the Christian Democratic Appeal reversed years of decline in 1977 and returned to power.

In the parliamentary election of May 1977, the Labour Party (PvdA) obtained its largest number of seats, so a second Den Uyl cabinet seemed likely.

Although Van Agt by this point was worn out, he was persuaded to lead his party's list again, but shortly after the election he withdrew as a candidate for prime minister and was succeeded by Ruud Lubbers.

Until his death, Van Agt was Prime Counsellor for the International Forum for Justice and Peace, a foundation under Dutch law, registered at the Chamber of Commerce in Amsterdam.

Van Agt lectured in Cairo in May 2006 at the invitation of the Egyptian electronic magazine Arab-West Report about great changes in the cultural climate of north-western Europe in the past decades, becoming more hostile to religion, including Islam.

[2] Van Agt also spoke against the Council of State in Egypt for continuous delay in granting the Center for Arab-West Understanding (CAWU) the NGO status.

Cornelis Hulsman, a Dutch sociologist, the editor-in-chief of Arab-West Report, and the head of CAWU, stated that van Agt's effort significantly impacted the realization of their goals, which usually requires a lengthy amount of time and scrutiny in its political purposes.

[3] According to his own words an important turning point was a visit at the late nineties at Bethlehem University on the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

[6] In 2009, Van Agt founded The Rights Forum, a non-profit organization aimed at promoting a “just and sustainable Dutch and European policy regarding the Palestine/Israel issue”.