Abstract
This analysis provides a re-appraisal of the 1899 Hague Conference by looking more closely at how citizen activists—notably in Britain but also transnationally—used it as a forum through which to press their agenda onto politicians and diplomatists. In so doing, this assembly existed as a stepping-stone between the ‘old’ diplomacy of the nineteenth century and the ‘new’ diplomacy of the twentieth. Peace activists identified and harnessed a growing body of progressive public opinion—on both a domestic and international scale—in the hope of compelling governments to take the necessary steps towards realising their ambitions of peace, disarmament, and international arbitration. Although the tangible outcomes of the 1899 Conference were limited, the precedents it established not only paved the way for further advances in international law, but also facilitated ever closer public and press scrutiny of international affairs into the twentieth century.
Highlights
Within the many pages written about the diplomatic prelude to the First World War, the two Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907 are, if mentioned at all, routinely dismissed as peripheral events of little consequence.[1]
This analysis provides a re-appraisal of the 1899 Hague Conference by looking more closely at how citizen activists – notably in Britain and transnationally – used it as a forum through which to press their agenda onto politicians and diplomatists
Peace activists identified and harnessed a growing body of progressive public opinion – on both a domestic and international scale – in the hope of compelling governments to take the necessary steps towards realising their ambitions of peace, disarmament, and international arbitration
Summary
Within the many pages written about the diplomatic prelude to the First World War, the two Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907 are, if mentioned at all, routinely dismissed as peripheral events of little consequence.[1].
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