Hague Appeal Sets a New Agenda.

• Author: Weiss, Cora
• Position: Brief Article

We came together--human rights activists, those from the spiritual and religious community, feminists, indigenous, lawyers, environmentalists, and peace organizers--to forge a culture of peace for the new century. Following 100 war-filled years and in the absence of a peace conference among the United Nations summit meetings of the past decade, civil society had to give peace the last word of the century. And the United Nations was front and centre at the historic Hague Appeal for Peace Conference, held from 11 to 15 May 1999. The Conference was called by civil society but included representatives of Governments and intergovernmental organizations working together in what has become known as the "new democratic diplomacy". The Hague Agenda for Peace and Justice for the 21st Century--a 50-point guide to the abolition of war and the creation of a culture of peace--is the Conference product.

It was the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the first Hague Peace Conference convened in 1899 by 30-year-old Czar Nicholas of Russia and 18-year-old Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands. Some 1,500 young people were among the nearly 10,000 participants from over 100 countries who gathered at The Hague. Five Nobel Peace laureates, two prime ministers, two foreign ministers, heads of major international organizations, landmine victims, people from the bombing and terror in Kosovo and Serbia, women from Bougainville meeting their country's enemy from Papua New Guinea, people from Armenia and Azerbaijan and from North and South Korea--all came together under the banner of "Peace is a Human Right".

Indeed, it was at the first Hague Peace Conference that the idea of the pacific settlement of disputes was born and which led eventually to the establishment of the International Court of Justice, the Permanent Court of Arbitration and the League of Nations. Just as The Hague delegates in 1899 called for the elimination of dumdum bullets, so The Hague Appeal for Peace and Justice calls for the elimination of nuclear weapons and landmines, and a drastic reduction in the trade in small arms. Just as the 1899 Conference asked for the possibility of an agreement on the limitation of armed forces and military budgets, so, too, The Hague Agenda calls for the progressive reduction of all military budgets and a reversal of priorities so that human security--education, health, sanitation, jobs, literacy--not national security becomes the first concern of Governments.

The...