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Brussels Conference Act of 1890

International anti-slavery agreement

Field	Value
name	Brussels Conference Act, 1890
long_name	Convention Relative to the Slave Trade and Importation into Africa of Firearms, Ammunition, and Spiritous Liquors
image	Brussels International Conference, November 18, 1889 July 2, 1890, protocols and final act Ministry of Foreign Affairs France.png
type	Anti-slavery; drug control
date_drafted	1889–1890
date_signed	2 July 1890
location_signed	Brussels
date_effective	31 August 1891
negotiators	* Austro-Hungarian Empire

Belgium
Congo Free State
Kingdom of Denmark
Ethiopian Empire
French Third Republic
German Empire
Kingdom of Italy
Netherlands
Ottoman Empire
Early 20th Century Qajar Flag.svg Sublime State of Persia
Kingdom of Portugal
Russian Empire
Spain
Sultanate of Zanzibar
Union between Sweden and Norway
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
United States of America The Brussels Conference Act of 1890 (officially, the Convention Relative to the Slave Trade and Importation into Africa of Firearms, Ammunition, and Spiritous Liquors) was a collection of anti-slavery measures signed in Brussels on 2 July 1890 (and which entered into force on 31 August 1891) to, as the act itself puts it, "put an end to Negro Slave Trade by land as well as by sea, and to improve the moral and material conditions of existence of the native races".

Context

The negotiations for this act arose out of the Brussels Anti-Slavery Conference 1889–90. The act was specifically applicable to those countries "who have possessions or Protectorates in the conventional basin of the Congo", to the Ottoman Empire and other powers or parts who were involved in slave trade in East African coast, Indian Ocean and other areas.

The parties to the agreement were Austria-Hungarian Empire, Belgium, the Congo Free State, Denmark, Ethiopia, France, the German Empire, Italy, the Netherlands, the Ottoman Empire, Persia, Portugal, Russian Empire, Spain, Sultanate of Zanzibar, Sweden–Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

The Brussels Act was supplemented and revised by the Convention of Saint-Germain-en-Laye 1919 signed by the Allied Powers of the First World War on 10 September 1919.

Legal provisions

Trade in human beings

Article 21 of the Act describes the zone in which measures should be taken, referring to "the coasts of Indian Ocean (including the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea), the Belouchistan up to Tangalane (Quilimane)... " and Madagascar. The Act provided for the establishment of a relevant International Bureau in Zanzibar.

In its Article 68, the Act established the following: :"the Powers recognize the high value of the Law on the prohibition of Slave Trafficking of blacks, issued by His Majesty The Emperor of the Ottomans on 4–16 Dec. 1889, and are assured that a surveillance action will be taken by the Ottoman authorities, especially in the western part of Arabia and on the routes that keep that coast in communication with other possessions of His Imperial Majesty in Asia." Similar actions were called on to be taken by the Shah of Persia and the Sultan of Zanzibar (Art. 69, 70). The participants also agreed to stop sales of guns and other weapons to Africans.

Drug control measures for liquor

Because of its provisions on alcohol, the Act is considered the first treaties on the control of psychoactive substances (preceding the first opium treaty from 1909).

References

Bassiouni, M. Cherif. (1987). "A Draft International Criminal Code and Draft Statute for an International Criminal Tribunal". Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.
Brahm, Felix. (2021). "Banning the sale of modern firearms in Africa: On the origins of the Brussels Conference Act of 1890". Journal of Modern European History.
"Slave trade and importation into Africa of firearms, ammunition and spiritous liquor".
(2023-03-28). "Examining Colonial Wars and Their Impact on Contemporary Military History". IGI Global.
Drysdale, John. (1964). "The Somali Dispute". F.A. Praeger.
"United States of America – Convention revising the General Act of Berlin, February 26, 1885, and of the General Act and the Declaration of Brussels, July 2, 1890, signed at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, September 10, 1919 [1922] LNTSer 19; 8 LNTS 27".
George Young. Corps de Droit Ottoman. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1905, pp. 192–206.
G. N. Uziogwe, ‘European Partition and Conquest of Africa: An Overview’, in A. A. Boahen (ed.), General History of Africa, vol. vii, (Oxford, 1990), p. 22
Pan, Lynn. (1975). "Alcool in Colonial Africa". [[Finnish Foundation for Alcohol Studies]].
Seddon, Toby. (2016). "Inventing Drugs: A Genealogy of a Regulatory Concept". Journal of Law and Society.

Info: Wikipedia Source

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