Description
The Carnegie Foundation is the owner of the Peace Palace in the Hague, which was founded in 1903 with a gift of over one million dollars from Andrew Carnegie. The Peace Palace is home to a number of international judicial institutions, including the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), the Peace Palace Library and the Hague Academy of International Law (HAIL).
The Carnegie Foundation has tried throughout the years not to be simply a management authority, but rather to facilitate conferences and high level events in the field of international law.
In one hundred years, thanks to Andrew Carnegie’s enthusiasm in 1905 to provide a library for the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the Peace Palace library has grown from a small collection to one of the largest collections in the world in the field of international law, public and private international law, foreign national law, international relations and diplomatic history.
The Library of the Peace Palace has one of the world’s largest collections in the field of international law, public and private law, and foreign national law, as well as an extensive collection on international political and diplomatic history and the history of peace movements. Also, it hosts the Grotius Collection, the collection on the important 17th century Dutchman Hugo de Groot, founder of the science of international law. In 1913, the Peace Palace Library (PPL) was opened as the world first single library on international, comparative and foreign national law.
The latest figures on material in the field of IEL in the library are:
• 74 items in international environmental law,
• 41 items in European environmental law,
• 844 items related to environmental law in general
The Peace Palace Library Collection can be with a full right called a mirror of the historical development of international law, and as a consequence, of international environmental law. Its location in The Hague is a historical and political necessity, from which so many international organisations take the profit.
The Hague Academy of International Law is a centre for research and teaching in public and private international law and it is located in the Peace Palace. The Hague Academy main objective is the enhancement of scientific and advanced studies on the legal aspects of international relations. The Hague Academy is not a University, nor does have a permanent teaching staff, but it is run by a scientific body, the Curatorium which decides on the programmes as well as on high level speakers to be invited on a case by case basis.
One of the main activities of the Hague Academy is the organisation of summer courses which take place every year in a period of six weeks between July and August. The summer courses deal with both private and public international law and gather together students from all over the world which have the opportunities to visit and get contact with the major institutions of international law located in The Hague, such as the International Court of Justice, the international criminal courts, the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal, the Bureau of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the Conference on Private International Law, and other institutions. The Centre for Research of the Hague Academy is also at disposal in certain periods of the year for high-level research and working under the direction of qualified professors. In conjunction with the summer course, the Academy organizes every year a Centre d’Etude de Recherche, a 4 weeks periods during which researchers from all over the world dedicate to in-depth research of selected topics. The results of this research is renowned publication including a selection of papers provided by the researchers.
The Hague Academy organises also an external programme, based on training programmes to various countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia and nowadays also in Central and Eastern Europe and also to Asia. The external programme aims at the promotion of knowledge of international law and its developments. Moreover, The Hague Academy has also established since 2004 a new programme of intensive refresher seminars in international law aimed at practitioners and those persons interested in international law.
International environmental law is regularly one of the themes studied in the Academy. A few examples follow. The programme of the Public International Law section of the 2006 summer school included a section on international co-operation which covered, inter alia, issues like communications (road, railroad), the law of the sea (air and space law) International trade law, international law of development and technical assistance institutions. Such a programme, although not including a specific section on international environmental protection, presents many connections with the international law and treaties on environmental protection. Furthermore, in 2008, international environmental law is the subject of the Centre d’Etude de Recherche.
The activities and the competences of The Hague Academy in the field of environmental protection can be considered also when looking at the list of publications for the collected courses, which includes several texts on the relation between international law and the protection of the environment. Such relations include international liability, international economic law, environmental damage and private international law, enforcement of international environmental law, environmental policy and economic instruments.
Categories
Educational / Training Body
Foundation
Research / Scientific / Technical Institute