Hague Peace Conference

Henry Harris. To Serve Mankind in Peace and the Fatherland in War The Case of Fritz Haber. German History. 10, no. 1 (1992) 24-38. Source for Haber s baptism early Karlsruhe career Hague Peace Conferences Conant Nationalism in 1900 wedding photo, and Haber as tragic hero. 

At the First Hague Peace Conference in 1899, Article 23(a) banned the use of poisons or poisoned arms and was ratified by the United States. A separate declaration banning asphyxiating gasses in shells was rejected by the United States even though the major European powers all signed it (Taylor and Taylor, 1985). 

Unlike tlie privateers tliat liad existed prior to the Declaration of Paris, these merchant cruisers were to be commissioned as naval vessels throughout the period of their engagement and manned by service personnel. It was this distinction from the earlier )rivately owned md crew ed vessels that permitted Britain to implement these conversions. The anomaly - for anomaly it w as - surfaced in the later Hague Peace Conference when the use of vessels of this type was finally regulated. 

Captain Alfred T. Mahan, a U.S. Navy delegate plenipotentiary, gave three reasons for opposing the additional restrictions (1) currently used weapons were despised as cruel and inhumane when first introduced, (2) since there were no current chemical weapons stockpiles, it was too early to ban them, and (3) chemical weapons were not any more inhumane than any other weapon. The 1907 Second Hague Peace Conference retained the ban against poisons.15... 

Captain Mahan, US delegate to the 1907 Hague Peace Conference, cited in A. von W. and A.H. Thomas, Legal Limits on the Use of Chemical and Biological Weapons (International Law 1899-1970), pp. 47 and 266. 

Conference Report (1907) Report to the 1907 Hague conference. The proceedings of the Hague conferences. The conference of 1907 Vol. I. Prepared in the division of international law of the Carnegie endowment for international peace under the supervision of James Brown Scott. Oxford University Press, New York 1921... 

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