War and International Adjudication: Reflections on the 1899 Peace Conference

In fact, the first organized communities of international law . . . are organizations the function of which is to settle conflicts. Hans Kelsen But here we shall note the recurrence of a paradox . . . . Where practice is least ethical, theory becomes most Utopian. Edward Hallett Carr The belief that a world free of war might be possible, be more than simply a dream, is a relatively recent phenomenon. In earlier times, war—like disease—was a part of life. There existed then a fatalism about war that no doubt persists in many parts of the world today. During the nineteenth century, however, parts of the world developed a confidence in progress and a hope that progress might extend to the abolition of war. Most importantly for this essay, a popular belief circulated at the e nd of the century that the establishment of a permanent international court would be an important step toward a world free of war. Ad hoc arbitration, as distinct from adjudication by such a permanent court, was not the same and, by itself, not enough. The 1899 Peace Conference was a point of inflection, a turn in the river, in the effort to move beyond ad hoc international arbitration to adjudication by a permanent international court as a means to avoid war a nd preserve international peace and security.