324 A Positive Century (1815–1914)world in general to participate, en masse, in the draft ing of international
legislation. Th is took place at the First Hague Peace Conference, held in
1899 at the instigation of the Rus sian government.
Th e fi rst conference actually fell far short of including all countries. An
impressive twenty- six states were represented— but this included only three
from the Western Hemi sphere (the United States, Mexico, and Brazil). Th e
major in de pen dent Asian states (China, Japan, and Siam), however, were pres-
ent. Bulgaria was permitted to attend, even though it was merely an autono-
mous region within the Ottoman Empire. (Th e Turkish government made no
objection to its attendance.) Moreover, in a signifi c a n t a c k n o w l e d g m e n t o f t h e
principle of legal equality of states, it was agreed that each country, regard-
less of size or strength, would have a right to equal repre sen ta tion with all
others on the various committees that were formed. It was also understood—
though not formally stated in any rules of the conference— that there would
have to be unanimous agreement of all states to any decisions (with the
proviso that abstentions would not prejudice unanimity).
A number of prominent international lawyers were present as “scientifi c
delegates.” Th e most prominent was Martens, the eff ective delegation leader
of the state that had initiated the conference. He was said to have “allowed
no one to forget that he enjoyed a reputation as Eu rope’s leading jurist in his
fi eld.” Renault was on the French delegation. Philipp Zorn, then of the Uni-
versity of Königsberg, was the legal adviser to the German delegation. Present
for Austria- Hungary was Heinrich Lammasch, a law professor at the Univer-
sity of Vienna. Th e British delegation was led by Pauncefort (now serving as
ambassador to the United States). Ariga was present for Japan. On the Dutch
delegation was Asser, then serving as president of the Institute of Interna-
tional Law. Rolin- Jaequemyns’s son, Édouard (on his way to being a distin-
guished international lawyer in his own right) represented Siam, for which
he was acting as consul- general in Belgium at the time (during his father’s
employment in that country on government ser vice).
Th e chief accomplishments of the conference were in two areas. One (to
be considered presently) was dispute settlement. Th e other was the law
of war. On this topic, two conventions were concluded. One extended the
scope of the Geneva Convention of 1864 from land war to maritime war, by
providing for immunity of hospital ships from attack. Far more promi-
nent was the other convention: a codifi cation of the laws of land warfare in