To understand the debates of the 1899 Peace Conference, one must appreciate the spirit of the nineteenth century and the contemporary concern about the growing horrors of war, the concomitant drive for peace, and the belief that international arbitration, if improved through the establishment of a permanent court, offered the promise of ending war. An important caveat regarding the discussions of the nineteenth century recounted in this essay is that they primarily involved Europeans and were global only in the sense that the century was a European one. (…) A distinctive feature of the nineteenth-century peace movements was their faith in international arbitration, and particularly adjudication before a permanent international court, as a promising means to advance peace. (…) Arbitration had reemerged as a device of international relations at the end of the eighteenth century, when it was used in the Jay Treaty of 1794 between Great Britain and the United States. This form of international dispute resolution proceeded to enjoy a renaissance in the nineteenth century, culminating in, for many, a particularly important event, the Alabama arbitration of 1871-1872, whose success served to deepen even further the widespread enthusiasm and support for international adjudication.