![handle is hein.journals/meljil15 and id is 1 raw text is:
100 YEARS OF INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION AND
ADJUDICATION
KENNETH KEITH*
On 28 August 1913, the Peace Palace in The Hague was opened in the
presence of Queen Wilhelmina. Andrew Carnegie, the Scottish American
philanthropist who provided the major funding for the building, recorded in his
diary that evening that
[n]othing he [man] has yet accomplished equals the substitution for war, of
judicial decisions founded upon International Law, which is slowly, yet surely, to
become the corner stone, so long rejected by the builders, of the grand edifice of
Civilization.1
The Peace Palace was built to house the Permanent Court of Arbitration
('PCA'), which was established by the Hague Conventions for the Pacific
Settlement of International Disputes.2 It was said of that body that it 'is not
permanent because it is not composed of permanent judges; it is not accessible
because it has to be constituted for each case; it is not a court because it is not
composed of judges' . Neither did it arbitrate. Rather it was a secretariat with a
list of possible arbitrators if states in dispute were willing to agree to use its
Judge, International Court of Justice. Based on addresses given in Wellington on 27 August
2013 and as the Seabrook Chamber Lecture in Melbourne on 4 September 2013 to mark the
centennial of the opening of the Peace Palace in The Hague. In delivering the lecture in
Melbourne, I recalled my long and valuable connection from the 1960s to members of the
Law Faculty in Melbourne, including Sir David Derham, Dr Peter Brett, Sir Zelman Cowen
and Sir Kenneth Bailey, who had been Dean in the 1930s. I also mentioned the excellent
conference at the University held in the lead up to the 1999 Conference in The Hague,
marking the centennial of the 1899 Conference, organised by Sir Ninian Stephen, Professor
Michael Crommelin and Professor Tim McCormack, all of whom attended the 2013
address. See Timothy L H McCormack, Michael Tilbury and Gillian D Triggs (eds) A
Century of War and Peace: Asia Pacific Perspectives on the Centenary of the 1899 Hague
Conference (Kluwer Law International, 2001) 269. Many thanks to Amelia Keene for
research assistance and to Dr Liesbeth Lijnzaad for comment.
1 Andrew Carnegie, quoted in Arthur Eyffinger, The Peace Palace: Residence for
Justice - Domicile of Learning (Carnegie Foundation, 1988) 110.
2 Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes, opened for signature 29
July 1899 (entered into force 4 September 1900); Convention for the Pacific Settlement of
International Disputes, opened for signature 18 October 1907 (entered into force 26 January
1910) ('Hague I').
3 James Brown Scott, 'Address to the Ninth Meeting' (Speech delivered at the Second
International Peace Conference, The Hague, 1 August 1907) in James Brown Scott (ed), The
Proceedings of the Hague Peace Conferences: Translation of the Official Texts (Oxford
University Press, 1921) vol 2, 319. F F de Martens also delivered a speech at the same
conference in which he said that '[t]he Court of 1899 is but an idea which occasionally
assumes shape and then again disappears': at 327.
1](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/meljil15&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
What Is HeinOnline?
Contact us for annual subscription options:
Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?
profiles profiles most
Contact us for annual subscription options:
Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?
profiles profiles most
Contact us for annual subscription options:
Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?
profiles profiles most