British Academy: The UK's National Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences
Social and Cultural Change in late pre-modern Korea
A one-day conference organised in collaboration with the
British Association for Korean Studies
Abstracts
The Korean Delegation at the 1907 Peace Conference in The Hague
Dr Koen De Ceuster - Docent, Leiden University
Barred from attending the Hague Peace Conference, the Korean delegation at first sight miserably failed in its task of representing Korea at the Conference. Reading this episode as a continuation of Kojong’s ongoing attempts to secure Korean neutrality under international law, the dispatch of the delegation to The Hague becomes a show of great acumen by Kojong who confronted the powers with the ambiguity between the lofty ideals of sovereign equality and the reality of ‘legalized hierarchies’. Approaching the Korean deputation from perspective of the international community present in The Hague and its reactions to the sudden appearance of this unexpected deputation, I rely on conference documents, diaries, dispatches and contemporary press coverage to establish the constraints the delegation faced and how under such circumstances they proved very adequate advocates of the Korean cause in the international arena. Rather than envoys from a ‘hermit kingdom’, the Korean deputation proved to be skilled spin doctors.
Recommended reading: Gerry Simpson, Great Powers and Outlaw States. Unequal Sovereigns in the International Legal Order (Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp.132—164.