Introduction
![handle is hein.journals/ajil94 and id is 15 raw text is: SYMPOSIUM: THE HAGUE PEACE CONFERENCES
INTRODUCTION
By George H. Aldrich and Christine M. Chinkin*
On May 18, 1899, the first Hague Peace Conference was convened in the House in the
Woods provided by the Dutch royal family. It was attended by invitation by representatives
of twenty-six of the fifty-nine governments that then claimed sovereignty. The hundred
delegates included diplomats, statesmen (no stateswomen!), publicists, lawyers, and tech-
nical and scientific experts. Unlike earlier peace conferences, which were convened to
terminate ongoing armed conflicts, the Hague Conference met in peacetime for the
purpose of making law. The conference was called at the initiative of Tsar Nicholas II of
Russia with the intentions principally to seek agreements to limit armaments and their
consequent financial burdens, and secondarily to improve the prospects for the peaceful
settlement of international disputes and to codify the laws of war.' Doubtless, the tsar's
initiative was inspired in part by his grandfather's earlier success in obtaining the St.
Petersburg Declaration of 1868, which prohibited, for humanitarian reasons, the use of
explosive projectiles weighing less than four hundred grams.2 In any event, the Hague Peace
Conference pursued a much broader agenda than the meetings at St. Petersburg and was
able to draw upon certain preparatory work on the laws of war, including the Geneva
Convention on the Amelioration of the Conditions of the Wounded in Armies in the Field
of 1864,3 the draft Project of an International Declaration concerning the Laws and Customs
of War produced by the Brussels Conference of 1874,' and the Oxford Manual on the laws
of war of 1880, which had been adopted unanimously by the Institute of International Law.5
The 1899 conference achieved only modest results in addressing the subject of most
importance to the tsar, arms limitation, but it was unquestionably successful in developing
and codifying the law on the peaceful settlement of disputes and the laws of war. The del-
egates adopted three conventions, one on the peaceful settlement of disputes, which
promoted good offices and mediation, commissions of inquiry and nonmandatory arbi-
tration, and established the Permanent Court of Arbitration;6 a second, which codified the
* Of the Board of Editors.
SeeThe Final Act of the Peace Conference of 1899,July 29,1899, 2JAMEs BROWN SCOTT, THE HAGUE PEACE
CONFERENCES 1899 AND 1907, at 61 (1909) [hereinafter 1899 Final Act], reprinted in THE LAwS OF ARMED
CONF.ICTS 49 (Dietrich Schindler &Jiff Toman eds., 3d rev. ed. 1988).
2Declaration Renouncing the Use, in Time of War, of Explosive Projectiles under 400 Grammes Weight, Nov.
29, 1868 (Dec. 11), 18 Martens Nouveau Recueil (le s~r.) 474, translated and reprinted in THE LAWS OF ARMED
CONFLICTS, supra note 1, at 101.
- Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field, Aug. 22,1864,18
Martens Nouveau Recueil (le s~r.) 612, translated and reprinted in THE LAWS OF ARMED CONFLICTS, supra note 1,
at 279.
' Project of an International Declaration concerning the Laws and Customs ofWar, Aug. 27,1874,65 BRIT. &
FOREIGN ST. PAPERS 1005 (1873-74), reprinted in THE LAWS OFARMED CONFLICTS, supra note 1, at 25.
' The Laws of War on Land, Sept. 9, 1880, 5 INsTrrT DE DROrr INTERNATIONAL, ANNUAIRE 156 (1881-82),
translated and reprinted in THE LAWS OFARMED CONFLICTS, supra note 1, at 35.
' Convention [No. I] Regarding the Pacific Settlement of International DisputesJuly 29, 1899, 32 Star. 1779,
1 Bevans 230.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/ajil94&div=9&collection=journals&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Introduction
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