Disarmament Debates around the 1899 Hague Peace Conference and the 1921–1922 Washington Conference: Community-Oriented Aspirations and Individual Security Concerns

Abstract

When disarmament started to interest the major states and international lawyers at around the time of the 1899 Hague Conference, two distinct positions concerning the law of disarmament became apparent: proponents and opponents. The proponents, with their community-oriented aspirations, found much merit in establishing the law of disarmament, while the opponents, with their individual security concerns, saw nothing but negative consequences for such a possibility. Given these two forces in the disarmament debate, one could wonder how the 1921–1922 Washington Conference was able to produce a treaty limiting the naval armament. This article tries to show that the Washington Naval Treaty was different from the law of disarmament that the proponents had envisioned, and that it was made possible by carefully crafted provisions to limit its own impact on the security of the naval powers.