Chapter 4 examines the emergence of different internationalist aspirations on both sides of the Atlantic to supersede conflict-prone imperialist power politics and to advance towards a more pacific international order in the decades before the First World War. It compares the pursuits of liberal and both centrist and more radical socialist actors, non-governmental associations and newly important transnational networks like the burgeoning pacifist movement, the Second International and, notably, the new phalanx of those who demanded that power politics should be replaced by arbitration and authoritative covenants of international law – and who paved the way for the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. It reassesses not only the guiding ideas of the vanguards of such aspirations but also the actual influence they had on transatlantic and global politics in this crucial phase, seeking to offer a systematic explanation of why these counterforces failed to civilise international politics and why ultimately they could not prevent the escalatory processes that caused the catastrophe of 1914.

This is a general presentation of the book. The central thesis of the book is that the law of neutrality remains relevant in contemporary international law because of in an armed conflict, third non-participating States do not remain unaffected. There is a presentation of the basic argument in each chapter.

A presentation of the concluding remarks and main submissions on the issues discussed in Chapters 1 to 6 of the book.

This chapter explores the evolution of thinking on war crimes prior to and during the Second World War. The first part of the chapter considers how ’war crimes’ were understood before the Second World War. It discusses the Hague Conventions, the post-World War I settlement, the failure to try Kaiser Wilhelm II, and the legacy of the Leipzig trials. This is followed by an examination of the deliberations on war crimes in different international fora during the war years. The chapter also explores the debate within the Polish Government in Exile that resulted in the passing of war crimes legislation. It is argued that the debates in these fora helped advance understanding of the challenges of war crimes prosecution which, in turn, provided firm foundations for legal discussion and innovation within the UNWCC.

I argue in this chapter that the negotiations surrounding both the Geneva Conventions and the Protocols Additional to the Geneva Conventions demonstrate that the expectation of reciprocity still exists within IHL, despite significant concessions towards humanitarianism. This chapter proceeds in four parts. In the first section, I give a brief history of IHL and highlight the role historically played by expectations of reciprocity within the regime. In sections two, three and four I examine the negotiations that took place at the Diplomatic Conferences of 1949 and 1974–7 that updated Geneva law. Each section demonstrates how, despite the willingness of states to extend the protections of IHL regulations to more armed conflicts and individuals, they were only willing to do so given the expectation of a reciprocal commitment – both de jure and de facto – to comply with the law. I conclude with some remarks about what the history of these negotiations demonstrates about the continued role played by expectations of reciprocity in the POW regime, given that this is the central focus of the subsequent two chapters.