Significance of the Hague Peace Conference in the Asia-Pacific Region: the South Pacific Including New Zealand

In the first part of this text, Sir Kenneth Keith discusses the New Zealand Wars and reflects on the issuance by Maori of a set of laws to govern an 1864 battle. The author then considers New Zealand’s attitudes to the peaceful settlement of disputes between 1919 and 1945. He makes two points here on the 1899 Hague Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes, first that governments should have methods to keep their obligations in mind. Secondly, that the varied process of elaborating and accepting those treaties illuminates major differences in attitudes to international processes. In the third part, the author considers nuclear weapons and the South Pacific, where he comments on the nuclear tests and weapons cases before the International Court of Justice and aspects of the Rainbow Warrior case. (Abstract by Juliet Bull)