Hague Convention (1907)

The second and more influential of the Hague Conventions, which marked the last heyday of The Hague as the diplomatic center of the world before World War I. The Hague Convention, held in The Hague, Netherlands, and the resulting convention, or protocol, reflected increasing fear over the pace of the arms race and technological improvements to weaponry.

Russian leader Czar Nicholas II had called for a peace conference in 1899, prompted by his reading of The Future of War. The book, written by the czar's chief adviser, Jan Bloch, foretold the collapse of the great powers under the technical, economic, and social demands of modern warfare. Although the Hague Convention failed to outlaw war or achieve disarmament, it did result in the First Hague Convention (1899), an agreement that delineated conditions of belligerence and rules for war at sea and banned the use of poison gas, expanding bullets, and weapons from balloons.

The Second Hague Convention, held from June 15 to August 8, 1907, was proposed by U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt and opened by Czar Nicholas II. Although it failed equally as a peace and disarmament conference, it gained acceptance for important conventions and agreements.

Among several important protocols of the 1907 convention were those prescribing the rights and obligations of neutral parties, the law of war on land, the use of naval mines, the status of merchant shipping of belligerents, shore bombardment by naval forces, and the use of international prize courts. Furthermore, the use of compulsory arbitration in international disputes was approved in principle, and the foundation was laid for continuing peace conferences at eight-year intervals. The 1899 protocol on the use of balloons to deploy weapons was reaffirmed, but not the strictures on gas warfare and expanding bullets. These protocols became controversial and the subject of wartime law violations and countercharges during World War I.

World War I ended the Hague Conventions. The city of Geneva, Switzerland, succeeded The Hague as the world diplomatic capital, especially after the creation of the League of Nations in January 1920. Several Geneva conventions and protocols amended the 1907 Second Hague Convention with respect to chemical warfare. The 1925 Geneva Protocol added prohibitions on chemical and biological warfare, with further conventions added in 1972 (biological) and 1993 (chemical).

Perhaps the most important impact of the Second Hague Convention was that it set the course toward international cooperation on collective security and the extensive application of international law to warfare. Although disarmament efforts failed at both Hague Conventions, they certainly presaged later efforts—from the Washington Naval Conference of 1922 to contemporary accords—on all kinds of conventional and strategic weaponry.

Succeeding conferences and agreements in the tradition of the Hague Convention have added numerous useful provisions prohibiting certain methods of warfare and introducing issues related to civil wars. Nearly all countries of the world are signatory nations, in that they have ratified these conventions.