ABSTRACT
The practice of negotiating arms control in an international forum with a view to making the measures adopted applicable to several or all nations is relatively recent. The Permanent Court of Arbitration set up at the Hague was the predecessor of the present International Court of Justice. An early attempt to regulate the international trade in arms was made in the General Act for the repression of African slave trade, the so-called Brussels Act, signed in 1890. The arms, parts of guns and ammunition intended for the Shereefian troops were to be admitted after the fulfilment of the formal requirements specified in the Act. After the 1925 Geneva conference, a special committee was set up by the Council of the League of Nations to deal with the problem of arms production. In 1929, the committee submitted a draft convention regarding the “supervision of the private manufacture and publicity of the manufacture of arms and ammunition and of implements of war”.
