ABSTRACT
Introduction In May 1899, delegates from 26 countries met in The Hague, in the Netherlands, to hold what became known later as the First Hague Peace Conference. The meeting was convened by Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, and had two main objectives: (1) to stop the spread of armaments in Europe; and (2) to produce some ideas for the progress settlement of disputes. While little progress was made on disarmament, the conference did produce a series of declarations about the need to settle conflicts without resorting to arms (those declarations actually resulted in the establishment of the Permanent Court of Arbitration – the prototype of today’s International Court of Justice). Foremost among these declarations was the need to use judicial methods, arbitration or mediation in the settlement of international disputes. Thus, for the first time the norm of international mediation was given its most explicit formal espousal. Exactly 100 years later, in May 1999, another major peace conference was held in The Hague. This time the agenda was wider: the conference discussed such matters as assessing and removing the root causes of war, conflict prevention, and peace building, but its overall theme was ‘the peaceful settlement of disputes: prospects for the 21st century’. Among methods of peaceful settlement, mediation figured most prominently. In a world as interconnected and interdependent as ours is, the challenge of dealing with conflicts peacefully and learning to interact peacefully other human beings is truly one of the most important challenges we face today. However farfetched the claim may seem to some, there can be no doubt that mediation can resolve conflicts, reduce hostilities and generally allow people, organizations and nations to confront their differences peacefully, and at times even constructively. It is from that vantage point that I believe that a better and more systematic understanding of mediation, and a heightened awareness of just how best to apply it to human conflicts, can make a major contribution to scholarship, and hopefully the wider community as well.
