Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This paper aims to analyze the Hague Peace Conference held in 1899, focusing on the interpretation of documents, letters, agreements, declarations, and negotiations that marked this international diplomatic event. The study seeks to investigate how the concept of peace and the regulation of the use of force were addressed and received in the deliberations and resulting acts of the conference. Specifically, it aims to determine whether, although the concept of peace was not explicitly stated, it is possible to deduce, at the end of the 19th century, the emergence of an international right to peace, as well as the inclusion of pacifism as a fundamental principle in international law and diplomatic relations. Alternatively, the paper explores whether the conference, although historically identified as the first peace conference, resulted solely in the regulation of war and its practices in international conflicts between states. To this end, the research will employ historic and analytical methods, using a historical-bibliographical and documentary approach. Preliminary results indicate that the First Hague Peace Conference, held from May to July 1899, brought together 26 states with the purpose of discussing the implementation of laws and restrictions on war, limiting the conditions and means of conflict and the use of armaments, with the theme of peace serving as a secondary objective in the context of the negotiations.
Author: André Luiz Valim Vieira
Institution: Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp)
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4409458660