2.3 The Hague System (1899-1907)

The peace-conference line: Tsar Nicholas II's summons — the First Hague Peace Conference (1899): 26 states; the Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes (good offices, mediation, inquiry — the institutional seeds); the Hague Conventions on the laws of war (the martens clause's humane baseline) and the Declaration banning certain projectiles; the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) — the first standing dispute-settlement machinery (a panel of arbitrators on call — an institution, though not yet a true court). The Second Hague (1907): 44 states; the conventions' codification expansion (war's laws: land war, neutrality, bombardment); the planned International Prize Court (never operative); the abortive third conference (1914 — the war's casualty). The significance: the universal conference (states beyond Europe invited — the Americas' participation); the codification beginning (international law's first great legislative conferences); the arbitration ideal's institutionalization — the ICJ's genealogy runs through The Hague (the Permanent Court of International Justice, 1922, the PCA's descendant; the ICJ itself seated at The Hague — the Peace Palace).