Marinus Michiel (Michael) van Notten (8 December 1933 in Zeist – 2 June 2002 in Nîmes) was a Dutch lawyer who co-founded the Libertarian Center in the Netherlands, the Institutum Europaeum in Belgium, and wrote a book on Somali customary law.
He later served with a New York law firm and directed the Institutum Europaeum, a Brussels-based libertarian policy research organization.
In the early 1990s, he became interested in the prospect of Somalia developing in the modern world of a stateless society, and for the next twelve years, he studied Somali customary law.
These do not require legislation, however; many desirable changes, such as ending restrictions on the sale of land and enhancing the status of women, are implicit in economic development.
As for the Somali political system, not only is there no need to set up a democracy, the author clearly shows why any attempt to do so must inevitably produce chaos.