Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907

The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 are focused on preventing warring parties from using specific tools and tactics of warfare. They establish the laws and customs of war by defining the rules that warring sides must follow during hostilities. Hague Conventions classifies several of the violations of its norms, but not all, as war crimes.

The Conventions adopted at The Hague on 1899 concern issues such as:

• the pacific settlement of dispute;
• the laws and customs of war;
• the prohibition on the use of projectiles that disperse asphyxiating gas and;
• the prohibition on the use of bullets that expand or flatten easily in the human body.

The Hague Conventions of 1907, address

• the pacific settlement of disputes (based on The Hague Convention I of 1899);
• the opening of hostilities (The Hague Convention III);
• the laws and customs of war (Convention IV, with annexes and regulations, which develops Convention II of 1899 and cases of military occupation);
• the rights and duties of neutral powers in case of war on land (V);
• the status of merchant ships at the outbreak of hostilities (VI);
• the conversion of merchant ships into war ships (VII);
• the laying of automatic submarine contact mines (VIII);
• the bombardment by naval forces in time of war (IX);
• the adaptation to maritime war of the principles of the Geneva Convention of 1906 (X);
• restrictions with regard to the exercise of the right of capture in naval war (XI);
• the establishment of an international prize court (XII);
• the rights and duties of neutral powers in naval war (XIII).