The story
From May 18 to July 29, 1899, delegates of 26 states met at The Hague in the Netherlands, at the invitation of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, for the first international conference on peace and the laws of war. It produced three conventions and three declarations. One set up the Permanent Court of Arbitration, a roster of judges from which states could choose to settle disputes peacefully. Others codified the rules of land warfare and banned some weapons, including expanding bullets and poison gas shells.
The conference built on the 1863 Red Cross movement and 1864 Geneva Convention, and on a growing arms race and peace movement, including Bertha von Suttner's novel Lay Down Your Arms. Efforts to limit armaments failed, and the arbitration court had no power to compel anyone to use it. Yet it began work in 1902 and heard cases for years. A second conference in 1907 had 44 states, and the Peace Palace, funded by Andrew Carnegie, opened in 1913. The Martens Clause, drafted by the Russian jurist Friedrich Martens, said that civilians and fighters stay under the principles of humanity even where treaties are silent. After 1914 the system proved unable to stop war, but the League of Nations and United Nations followed its model.
Why it mattered
- It created the first permanent machinery for peaceful settlement of disputes between states, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, which still exists.
- Its rules on land warfare became the basis of the law of war applied after both world wars, including at Nuremberg.
- It set the pattern of general diplomatic conferences that produced the League of Nations and the United Nations.
- The Martens Clause remains a standard part of humanitarian law.
Sources
- Hague Conventions Britannica
- History of the Permanent Court of Arbitration Permanent Court of Arbitration
- The Hague Conferences (EHNE) Encyclopedia of European Cultures/EHNE
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