China claims most of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion of world trade passes every year. Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan have rival claims. In addition to substantial natural resources, the South China Sea is of paramount strategic significance to the Asian security paradigm and to global stability. We have created a Library Special on this topic in order to provide you easy access to our collection: a selective bibliography, newsletters, books, articles and online resources.

The initiative of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia to organize an international peace conference at the dawn of the twentieth century came at exactly the right moment. During the First Hague Peace Conference of 1899, 26 countries came together to speak about disarmament and about the possibility of international jurisdiction, which led to the establishment of the Permanent Court of Arbitration. In 1907 a second peace conference was organized in The Hague, in which 44 countries participated. Find out more about the Tsar’s initiative and his relationship with the Peace Palace.