International Peace Conference Research Articles

Diplomatic Efforts of the Soviet Union in Seeking a Path to Conflict Resolution and Organizing the Geneva Conference (1954) – An Approach Through the Notes of the Soviet Delegation

The 1954 Geneva Conference was one of the most notable international conferences during the Cold War, addressing the end of war and restoration of peace in three Indochina countries and the Korean Peninsula. Major powers, including the United Kingdom, France, the United States, the Soviet Union, and China, represented the two blocs of socialism and capitalism, and played significant roles in this conference. The Soviet Union, as a major power and representative of the Warsaw Pact, was pivotal in balancing the power between the two international superpowers at the time (the Soviet Union and the United States). This paper presents the Soviet Union's diplomatic efforts in seeking ways to resolve conflicts in Indochina and the Korean Peninsula. From the notes of Soviet diplomats, both secret and public meetings of foreign ministers and embassies reflect the challenging path to holding the conference according to the principles of an international peace conference. The Soviet Union, in its role, consistently acted as a conference designer, crafting a front for a known "battle" full of challenges.

Cilicia in the Documents of the U.S. State Department in 1919−1920

The diplomatic documents from the U.S. Department of State stored at the National Archives of the USA in Washington and Republic of Armenia in Yerevan, which were officially published in volumes by the U.S. Government yet in 1931-1947, contain remarkable material on Cilicia. They throw light upon the negotiations between the leaders of the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy and delegations representing those countries at the 1919-1920 Paris International Peace Conference on political status and borders of Cilicia, establishment of a mandate for it, withdrawal of British troops from the region, occupation of Cilicia and Syria by French troops. The documents of the State Department reveal the contradictions between the Great Powers on the above-mentioned issues, describe their interests in the region. Records for the meetings of the Council of Ten of February 4, Council of Four of March 20, May 14, 21, 31 and Council of Five of July 18, August 25, 1919 are valuable from this point of view. The “Scheme for settlement in the Turkish Empire” of May 21, 1919, reflects the position of the Prime Minister of Great Britain D. Lloyd George on Cilicia. The U.S. President W. Wilson’s approaches concerning Cilicia are reflected in reports of the U.S. Commissioners in Turkey C. Crane and H. King of August 28, 1919, and the chief of the military mission to Armenia General J. Harbord of October 16, 1919. The difficulty of the Turkish border demarcation through Cilicia is presented in a note issued by the Allied Supreme Council on April 26, 1920, to U.S. Secretary of State B. Colby. The U.S. State Department diplomatic documents confirm that the Allies were practically not interested in resolving the issue of ensuring the security of Cilicia and its Armenian population. Based on the 1916 Sykes-Picot Anglo-French secret agreement, the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres provided for the transference of the mandate of Cilicia to France. It became the beginning of handing over the land to the Kemalist Turkey. Thus France, seeking to receive its state debt from Turkey, became an accomplice to the new genocide of Cilicia Armenians.

Japan’s Debut in Multilateral Peace Diplomacy: The 1970 Jakarta Conference on the Cambodian Conflict

ABSTRACT It is widely thought that Japan’s involvement in multilateral conflict-resolution diplomacy began at the 1989 Paris international peace conference aimed at ending hostilities in Cambodia. However, in 1970, Japan was engaged in the Jakarta conference, a gathering of Asian and Pacific countries attempting to resolve a Cambodian conflict that erupted in that year and in the follow-up initiatives. This analysis draws on declassified diplomatic documents to show that although those efforts failed, Tokyo gained much from its debut in an international effort to resolve a conflict in Asia: expansion of its regional role, co-operation with Southeast Asian countries, and valuable peacemaking experience. This examination of that history elucidates the features and limitations of Japanese peacemaking diplomacy and examines international reactions to those efforts and the manner in which that experience shaped Japan’s role in Southeast Asia.

An International Law Perspective on Peace in the Life and Works of Bertha von Suttner

In her lifetime, Bertha von Suttner (1843-1914) was considered the most famous woman in the world. She dedicated her life to the pacifist struggle for international disarmament and the establishment of arbitration tribunals in order to settle disputes without the use of arms. Through several non-fiction books, countless magazine articles and lectures and the formation of the national peace associations in Austria (1891) and in Germany (1892), she contributed significantly to the endeavours of the international peace movement and the dissemination of pacifist ideas. Her tireless commitment also helped to pave the way towards the first international Peace Conference in The Hague in 1899. Her greatest success was her novel “Lay Down Your Arms!” in which she used unprecedented depictions of the atrocities in the battlefield and called unambiguously for the abolition of war.

Review

Review

The Korean Policy of Japan and the Response of Korean Society to the Establishment of the 1907 System in East Asia

The Russo-Japanese War (1904), which broke out during the confrontation between Russia and Japan on the Korean Peninsula, resulted in the reorganization of the powers, In Europe, a confrontational system was established, represented by a ‘Triple Entente’ and ‘Dreibund’. In that extension, Japan became a major partner in the ‘Triple Entente’. As a result, the 1907 system centered on Japan was established before and after the second International Peace Conference in East Asia. In this situation, Emperor Kojong dispatched Yi Sang-sul, Yi Jun, Yi Wi-jong and Hulbert as special envoys to the Hague Peace Conference(1907). At that time, the Japanese government was aware of Korea s move to send a special envoy to Hague in advance. However, Japan did not try to prevent Emperor Kojong from sending them, nor did watch their activities without direct restraint in Hague. There were three important political intentions here. First, Japan intended to secure her right to protect Korea in the international community. Second, Japan intended to show off to the international community, that it had the ability to rule her colonies the same as other Western powers, allowing for open anti-Japanese activities by Korean envoys. Third, Japan intended to further strengthen its dominance over Korean with this case. The dispatch of special envoys to the Hague Peace Conference(1907) was the last attempt planned by Kojong as the Emperor of the Korean Empire to maintain Korea s independence. In response, the Korean community had little expectation for the Hague Peace Conference(1907) at that time. Howerever, the special envoys’ activities were enough to draw attention. However, Korean society did not give any positive meaning to their activities. As a result of the anti-Japanese activities of Korea. Japan has been strongly pressing the Korean government to increase its influence by pressing it hard. Indeed, Faced with the fact that Japan was forced to confront Kojong with the dispatch of a special envoy to The Hague. the Korean society denied the direct relationship between Kojong Emperor and the envoys.

The British National Union of Teachers (NUT) against the background of the Cold War: An International Peace Conference between teachers in Western and Eastern Europe

The aim of this article is to explain the political and trade union stance of the British National Union of Teachers (NUT) – representing the teachers of England and Wales – against the arms race and nuclear warheads set up in the European Continent during the Cold War (1947-1991). After adopting resolutions in support of «Education for Peace» at its Annual Conferences (Jersey, 1983 and Blackpool, 1984), the NUT held an International Peace Conference (1984) involving Western and Eastern European countries in which teachers’ unions from the following countries participated: the United States, Finland, the Soviet Union, the German Democratic Republic and Bulgaria. The international event was held in Stoke Rochford Hall (England) during the British miners’ national strike against the socioeconomic reforms instituted under the governments of Margaret Thatcher (1979-1990). The article started from the methodological presupposition based on the principle of political connection on an international scale within the scope of the trade union movement of teachers. Indeed, despite differences in nationalities, the educational processes institutionalized by schooling have acquired a universal character. Thus, teachers, irrespective of their nationality, are workers who are politically committed to the cultural values consecrated by the knowledge accumulated by humanity throughout history, especially when it comes to peace among peoples. It should be emphasized that the topic addressed has never before been analysed on an international level, and that primary sources that fall within the historical context of the facts studied were used in the production of the article.

To the 110th anniversary of the Second Hague Peace Conference

One hundred and ten years ago, at the initiative of Russia, the Second International Peace Conference was held in The Hague. It adopted 10 conventions on the laws and customs of war that laid the foundation for the system of international humanitarian law. It became a logical continuation of the 1899 conference, also convened at the initiative of Russia, which established general rules for the peaceful settlement of clashes between the powers, as well as a number of resolutions and «wishes» for conducting military operations. The article analyzes the reasons for convening these international forums and their significance for the world community.

Update on Conflict and Diplomacy

This update summarizes bilateral, multilateral, regional, and international events affecting the Palestinians and the future of the peace process. It covers the quarter beginning on 16 November 2016 and ending on 15 February 2017. Neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis made any efforts to resume peace negotiations this quarter. The Palestinians opted to coordinate with outgoing U.S. president Barack Obama on UN Security Council resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlements, while the Israelis pressed incoming U.S. president Donald Trump for a new regional peace approach. U.S. secretary of state John Kerry presented six principles for a Palestinian-Israeli peace deal, and the French government hosted an international peace conference in Paris. Trump took office in January and began backpedaling on his pledge to move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Meanwhile, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu continued his efforts to marginalize the Palestinian minority and political opponents in Israel in order to placate the fury of his ruling coalition's ultranationalists over the evacuation of Amona, an illegal settlement outpost. Settler movement leaders used their leverage with Netanyahu to pass a sweeping new bill in the Knesset retroactively legalizing such settlement outposts.

Abolitionist Geographies by Martha Schoolman (review)

Reviewed by: Abolitionist Geographies by Martha Schoolman Pia Wiegmink Martha Schoolman. Abolitionist Geographies. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2014. 240 pp. $75.00 cloth/ $25.00 paper. In Abolitionist Geographies, Martha Schoolman approaches abolitionist literature through the lens of geography; she draws attention to the multifaceted and often highly ambivalent ways in which spatial confines and geographic knowledge had significant impact upon abolitionist discourses. Her geopolitical approach thus brings to the fore what were central conundrums for abolitionists, such as the questions of white paternalism vis-à-vis black resistance, immediate versus gradual emancipation, accommodationism versus radical abolition, and nonviolent means of moral suasion versus armed rebellion. In her Introduction, which begins with a discussion of “the quintessential North American geographic novel” (1), Martin Delany’s Blake; or, the Huts of America (1859-62), Schoolman maps the “literary geography” (5) of U. S. abolitionism in a period from the Emancipation of the West Indies (1834) to John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry (1859). What follows are five densely argued chapters, which focus on different (albeit primarily white) authors and key themes of “literary abolitionism” (1), a term that unfortunately remains rather vague as it is not clear what informed Schoolman’s selection of primary texts, which range from classic abolitionist fiction like Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) to Emerson’s essay Nature (1836), a text that is seldom discussed in the context of abolition. Chapters one and two focus on white New England intellectuals and the geopolitical context of the British West Indies. Schoolman first examines the emerging abolitionist thought of New England intellectuals like Ralph Waldo Emerson and William Ellery Channing via their “convalescent southern travel” (36) and draws attention to the repeated and highly ambivalent intersection of discourses of illness and abolition. “What if,” Schoolman asks, the “parlors [of northerners] and their stomachs could do without plantation produce, but their lungs could not recover without the plantation climate?” (35). In typical fashion for Abolitionist Geographies, several other aspects are interwoven in this already complex topic of abolitionists’ transatlantic and hemispheric “itineraries of illness in the 1830s” (35): Schoolman reflects, for example, upon New Englanders’ conflicting observations concerning post-emancipation wage labor conditions (in comparison to slavery) and gradual emancipation (in contrast to immediate emancipation). Taken together, these multiple discourses show how the transnational flows of material goods, the corporeal experience of illness (and the travel it necessitates), and competing [End Page 387] economic visions of global labor are inextricably entwined in New England’s abolitionist thought. In the second chapter, “August First and the Practice of Disunion,” Schoolman examines the “strategic superficiality of the August First Celebration” (82) to commemorate Emancipation Day as an event of universal rather than national relevance. She shows how white American abolitionists turned Emancipation Day into a model for a peaceful end to slavery in the U. S., which was politically in sync with Garrison’s doctrine of nonviolence. Furthermore, Schoolman demonstrates how white abolitionists failed to acknowledge important precursors to emancipation in the West Indies, such as the slave revolt in Jamaica in 1832, in order to emphasize white control and deliberately construct a lack of black agency in the process of emancipation. While Schoolman’s line of argument is reasonable, her narrative would have benefited from a more detailed discussion of African American commemorations––and their equally strategic use of this transnational event––as they have been examined by Mitch Kachun (Festivals for Freedom: Memory and Meaning in African American Emancipation Celebrations, 1808-1915, 2003) and Jeffrey R. Kerr-Ritchie (Rites of August First: Emancipation Day in the Black Atlantic World, 2007). Chapter three analyzes black cosmopolitanism in William Wells Brown’s first travel narrative Three Years in Europe (1852). Schoolman argues how Brown, during his stay in Europe, gained a black cosmopolitan consciousness that was decidedly different from the typical notion of cosmopolitanism as a movement from the rural new world of slavery to the freedom of the metropolitan cities of the old world. During his attendance at the international peace conference in Paris in 1849, for example, Brown became aware of “the fragile tranquility of the present and the upheavals of the past” (116)––a realization which made him...

Implication of Dispatching the Korean Empire(Daehan Jeguk)’s Envoy to the Hague International Peace Conference

Implication of Dispatching the Korean Empire(Daehan Jeguk)’s Envoy to the Hague International Peace Conference

The motives behind the foreign political decisions of Frederick VI during the Napoleonic Wars

At the conclusion of peace at Kiel in 1814, the Danish state had to cede Norway to Sweden. Thus, Denmark was one of the greatest losers of the Napoleonic Wars. Denmark allied with France in 1807 after the British bombardment of Copenhagen and seizure of the Danish navy; Denmark stuck by Napoleon until the bitter end. After the crushing French defeat in Russia in 1812, King Frederick VI more than once received an offer from the Allies to change sides and break with Napoleon; however, he dismissed them. In Danish historiography, the king has therefore been seen as stubborn, incompetent, and motivated by a misconceived loyalty towards Napoleon. A more recent Danish historiographical trend stresses the fact that the Danish state was multi-territorial, and among other areas it contained the kingdom of Norway; consequently, this multi-territorial state formation was, in the mind of the Danish political decision makers, especially the exposed situation of Norway, dependent on grain imports and the subject of Swedish territorial ambition. But how did Frederick VI see things himself? What were his motivations for his foreign political decisions? Based on letters written by the king and instructions to Danish diplomats abroad it is argued that the grain provision and ongoing possession of Norway by the Danish state were crucial factors in the king’s decision to stick with Napoleon. This can be further nuanced: the king was expecting the wars to end with an international peace conference with Napoleonic representation, and so the king’s strategy was to stay loyal to Napoleon, in order to get his support for keeping Norway.

Canada's Credibility as an Actor in the Middle East Peace Process

From 1992 to 2000, Canada was intensively involved in the multilateral part of the Middle East peace process as chair of the refugee working group. This involvement, while mostly below the radar in terms of public perception, became a positive element of Canada's relations with countries of the Middle East. In addition, Canada's leadership role in the working group generally was well received and appreciated in Washington and added credibility to what Canada said about the Middle East in international meetings such as the G7 and at the UN.On the other hand, the whole multilateral process was governed by the rule of consensus, which meant that with regard to Palestinian refugees, achieving agreement on fundamental issues was dependent on confidence between the Israeli and Palestinian sides, a quality that was in increasingly short supply after the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the subsequent election of Benjamin Netanyahu. In this environment, the work of the refugee working group was important less for what it could achieve on the Palestinian refugee issue, but rather as a sign of life in the much-challenged peace process.In name, the working group dealt with one of the key aspects of the Israel- Palestine question. It was the only one of the five working groups that seemed to overlap so directly with the bilateral negotiations between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Despite these challenges, it was the only working group to continue substantial activity between 1995 and 2000, in the face of deteriorating bilateral negotiations and a hollowing out of the group's original mandate. Why and how this happened is really a Canadian story, which reflects a combination of Canadian commitment to and skill at multilateral diplomacy, the activist attitude of the then-foreign minister, Lloyd Axworthy, and the added value for Canadian policy of playing a highlighted role in the Middle East peace process.These days, when Canadian policy on the Middle East has become increasingly one-sided and isolated from that of its main partners, as reflected at the D eau ville G 8 meeting in May 2 o 11, it is worth reviewing how, in the period under review, Canada was able to be supportive and helpful to all parties in the region whue remaining consistent with Canada's longstanding policy on the Israel- Palestine question.BACKGROUNDHad it not been for the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the significant progress in Arab-Israeli relations in the 1990s - in which Canada became involved to an unprecedented degree - might never have happened. By the end of operation Desert Storm, however, President George H. W. Bush and his secretary of state, James Baker, were determined to seize on the significantly altered balance of power and new geopolitical realities to attempt to solve the Arab-Israeli dispute. Following intensive negotiation and shuttle diplomacy, an invitation was issued jointly by the United States and the Soviet Union to attend an opening international peace conference in Madrid on 30-31 October 1991, to be followed immediately by direct bilateral negotiations. Shortly thereafter, according to the invitation, multilateral negotiations on regional issues would begin, which other countries from the region, and from outside, would be invited to join.The United States wanted to keep the bilateral process small and serious, and invitations to the Madrid conference were limited to the countries most immediately involved. The subsequent multilateral process was intended to bring together countries of the region, including those not invited to Madrid, to discuss regional issues, originally identified by the United States as region-wide issues of water, refugee issues, environment, economic development, and other subjects of mutual interest.1 As the results of the Madrid conference were assessed in the foreign affairs ministry in Ottawa, the question arose as to whether Canada should seek an invitation to participate in the multilateral process. …

The troubles. Terroryzm w ulsetrze: po dwóch stronach barykady

Conflict in the Green Island has begun in the twelfth century, when Ireland came into the United Kingdom’s possession. It takes place between two antagonistic groups: Republicans (mostly native Catholics), and unionists, or loyalists (mostly the influx of Protestants). The dispute nowadays concerns the national identity of Northern Ireland. The Republicans opt for joining the territory of the Republic of Ireland, while unionists and loyalists want to stay with the Crown. Native inhabitants of the islands have been dominated politically, economically and educationally. They have fought time and again to achieve independence or unification with the Republic. Uprisings erupted (in 1641 – created anti-English, 1916 – Easter Rising, 1972 – Bloody Sunday), treaties were signed and the agreement (1973 – joint Stormont elections, the creation of the Council of Ireland, peace agreement in 1984, 1985 – an agreement and formation of the International Peace Conference (of the British – Irish relations), 1993 – the Downing Street Declaration, 1998 – Friday Agreement); despite the legislative obstacles (1652 – Act of occupation, 1691 – Treaty of Limerick, 1801 – Act of Union, 1922 – Special Powers Act, 1936 – Act of public order, direct rule, 2000 – Great Britain suspended the autonomy of Ireland). Republicans fought on the side of Irish Republican Army (IRA), which ceased its activities after the Agreement. Following the split, due to the signing of agreements, Republicans created Real IRA (RIRA), Provisional IRA (PIRA) and Continuity IRA (CIRA). Similar independent organizations are Irish Republican Army National – Liberation (INLA) and a fraction of the GHQ (INLA – GHQ). Some activists are still active in paramilitary capacities (eg. the 2009 RIRA attack). As well ascarry out criminal activities. Loyalists and Unionists were divided from the beginning (or rather never became united). Antagonistic attitudes towards the Republicans are shared by Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) and the Red Hand Defenders (RHD) Ulster Defence Association / Ulster Freedom Fighters (UDA / UFF) and the Orange Volunteers. Most of them are still active. In addition to the fight against the Republicans, these groups are also fighting amongst themselves. They work in the underground, whichwell in the basement, results in criminal activities. The conflict in Northern Ireland continues and seems difficult to solve. The society remains divided and the British law so far offers no solution, although hopefully one will be found in the future. Let us hope that there is no solution.

Mitigating but Not Rethinking: George W. Norris, Tommy Douglas, and the Great Plains

The careers of George W. Norris of Nebraska and Tommy Douglas of Saskatchewan, two extraordinary Prairie progressives, cover nearly a century of political activism, and tell us something about both what was possible and what was never even considered in Great Plains (1). That their seemingly different heritages, one a dyed-in-the-wool Republican from Ohio and one a Scots Labourite, should result in similar solutions to the problems of European-style agriculture on the Great Plains illustrates the significance of geography, independent of ideology, in determining the lifestyles that will work for a region. Richard Lowitt, Norris's biographer, describes him as a nineteenth-century liberal, but one who became a Progressive and then a New Dealer, developing his ideas to fit the exigencies of the twentieth century but maintaining his basic beliefs in the fundamental goodness of human beings, the value of honesty and hard work, and the role of government in helping people who were in trouble through no fault of their own. Although Norris carefully researched all the legislation he proposed and supported during his long career in the United States House (1902-1912) and Senate (1912-1942), he charted his economic and political course on experience rather than readings in history or theory. Like many highly successful individuals, he had a few ideas and he stuck to them, winning most of his greatest battles. He believed that government should be efficient, economical, and accountable to the voters. His institutional reforms included curbing the power of the Speaker and the caucus in the U.S. House and in instituting a Unicameral legislature in Nebraska. Norris started his career as a Republican but eventually became an Independent and one of the most intelligent backers of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal. Deeply moved by an international peace conference he attended in Belgium in 1905, he consistently supported a world body for arbitrating disputes, the disarmament of aggressor nations, and the restriction of munitions and armaments on the part of democratic nations. Norris, though originally not sympathetic to organized labor, came to see farmers and laborers as a necessary coalition. He believed that big business tended to exploit them both and that the role of government was to protect the people from monopolies by ensuring fair competition, bargaining right for workers, and mortgage relief for farmers beset by bad weather or low markets. He also believed that electric power was a basic but transformative necessity that could serve people best if it were generated and distributed publically, supporting both municipal and federal power (Norris, Lowitt, passim). Tommy Douglas has so far attracted more adulation, more vituperation, but less painstaking scholarly analysis than Norris. There is no work that compares to Lowitt's magisterial three-volume study of Norris. Nonetheless, the outlines of Douglas's career and beliefs are also clear. His intellectual tradition was that of British Labour of the Scots variety, deeply affected by the twentieth century Social Gospel of Salem Bland and J.S. Woodsworth. Like Norris, his program was based on experience rather than theory--he quickly dropped the repugnant eugenics theory that had formed his master's thesis, and it never influenced any part of his public policy (Stewart, 2003, 80-81). While Norris had had his pragmatic training as a lawyer and judge in southwestern Nebraska during the 1890s, Douglas's lessons in the world came from his own recurring bouts of osteomyelitis, his witnessing of the police riots against strikers in Winnipeg in 1919 and in Estevan in 1931, and his experience as a pastor and graduate student among the unemployed and desperate in the early 1930s. Unlike Norris, Douglas was satisfied with the parliamentary systems he worked in as both a Member of Parliament (1935-44, 1962-1979) and as Premier of Saskatchewan (1944-1962). He successfully advanced his beliefs, whether he was in the opposition or the majority. …

Toward a Just World: The Critical Years in the Search for International Justice. By Dorothy V. Jones. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. xvi, 270 pp. $30.00, isbn 0-226-40948-1.)

In this relatively brief book, Dorothy V. Jones adds to her series of studies analyzing diplomatic ideologies and practices (License for Empire, 1982; Splendid Encounters, 1984; Code of Peace, 1991). Her declared purpose is to investigate the relationships among justice, peace, human rights, and law (p. xi) in the century since the first International Peace Conference at the Hague in 1899. As the author claims in places, disarmingly so in respect to a chapter dealing with political and analytical “frameworks” for understanding the twentieth century, her approach seeks to bring fresh insights to apparently settled questions (pp. 238, 255). Yet, given the philosophical and empirical complexities that inform this particular “contest of concepts,” any new statement of the issues needs to present the reader with a clear “roadmap” (pp. 29–34, 238) of the historiography as much as it does the brute history of the period so that the utility of the revised version may be fairly assessed. Such a prosaic method is eschewed by Jones; rather, she writes allusively and anecdotally (and even with a touch of magical realism on South American politics, pp. 98–115) as though reluctant to appear positivistic in a postmodern academic world. We are offered glimpses of familiar signposts such as the establishment of the half-sibling Permanent Court of Arbitration and Permanent Court of International Justice, the evolution of the League of Nations into the United Nations, and most recently the creation of an International Criminal Court, whose immediate origins may be detected in the ad hoc tribunals to prosecute war crimes in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. Yet the actual work and dominant ideologies of these interconnected multilateral institutions come across in ways that perhaps only an expert will appreciate or even recognize. Thus more is said about the two Hammarskjöld brothers, Åke and Dag, than about the jurisprudence of the Permanent Court of International Justice or the veto power of the permanent members of the Security Council of the United Nations.

The Hague and Ottawa conventions: A model for future weapon ban regimes?

Just as the 19th century closed with the 1899 First International Peace Conference, held in The Hague, the Netherlands, calling for a ban on certain weapons, such as dum dum bullets and chemical gases, so is the 20th century coming to an end with the entering into force of the Ottawa Treaty banning antipersonnel landmines. What is remarkable about the two agreements is that they were created through similar processes: each lacked the support of many major state powers, each was negotiated by majority voting, and each was achieved in a very short time frame.

Le Comité international de la Croix-Rouge à l'époque de la première Conférence de La Haye (1899)

Abstract The then-President of the ICRC, Gustave Moynier, welcomed the initiative taken by Czar Nicholas II to convene a conference to discuss a large number of proposals to ensure peace in Europe. This conference became to be known as the (First) International Peace Conference (The Hague, 1899). While Moynier did not expect very much from a debate on “abolishing war altogether”, he expected the Conference to bolster the work started in Geneva in 1864, in particular by adopting an extension to maritime warfare of the 1864 Convention. He nevertheless did everything possible to prevent the Hague Conference from taking upon itself an amendment of the 1864 Convention, which he considered to be a matter for a special meeting to be held under the aegis of “Geneva”. In the end, the Conference was unable to make substantial progress on the issues which it considered to be most important, in particular disarmament. It did, however, adopt an initial version of what was to become, in 1907, the Hague Regulations on land warfare, as well as the suggested text on maritime warfare. The ICRC was not represented at the Conference, as for reasons of poor health Gustave Moynier was unable to attend. Édouard Odier, another member of the ICRC, did take part in the Conference, but as a member of the Swiss delegation.

The prohibition of reprisals in Protocol I: Greater protection for war victims

It is not without reservations that I am responding to the invitation from the Review for ‘veterans’ of the Diplomatic Conference on the reaffirmation and development of international humanitarian law applicable in armed conflicts (hereafter the Diplomatic Conference) to commemorate the signing 20 years ago of the Protocols additional to the Geneva Conventions. On 8 June 1977, all of us who contributed in one way or another to the drafting of those texts felt a sense of relief at having finally achieved our task. We also felt a kind of exhilaration at the thought that we had successfully completed an important undertaking that would benefit war victims. The two Protocols represented a major leap forward in the law of armed conflict. It should not be forgotten that practically two-thirds of the international community have now ratified these instruments. Yet compliance with them regrettably remains far from satisfactory. I need hardly recite the tragic litany of conflicts over the past 20 years that bear out this deficiency. The case best known to me is that of the “Yugoslav wars” (1991–1995). They constitute the clearest example of the yawning gap between the law itself and the degree to which it is implemented. What is even more worrying is that all of this is taking place in a world where the demise of “totalitarianism” has left the world with what is, for all practical purposes, a single centre of power. This centre comprises those States which, since the International Peace Conference held in 1899 in The Hague, have been inspired by their democratic traditions and their attachment to human rights and the rule of law to play a leading role in developing, affirming and reaffirming what today constitutes international humanitarian law applicable in armed conflicts. I therefore believe that this divergence between the letter of the law and the conduct of those responsible for implementing it results from a lack of determination on the part of governments to “ensure respect” for that law throughout the world. I am in no doubt whatsoever that they have sufficiently efficacious means at their disposal to do so. What is missing, unfortunately, is the political will.

Social Work's Legacy of Peace: Echoes from the Early 20th Century

In the early 20th century, women took courageous stands in working for peace. Jane Addams and Emily Greene Balch, both active in the settlement house movement, played instrumental roles in opposing World War I. Their fierce commitment to mediation in settling international conflicts despite negative public opinion holds lessons for social workers today. Both women formed organizations, some of which continue to play central roles in the social work profession today. This article describes their activities in the Women's Peace Party, as well as their accomplishments at the 1915 Women's International Peace Conference at The Hague.