Peace Palace Library

The Peace Palace Library is a collection of studies and references specializing in international law. It is located in The Hague, Netherlands, and was established to support the Permanent Court of Justice.

The Library is one of the oldest libraries dedicated to international law. Its main objective is to service the institutions residing in the Peace Palace, including the International Court of Justice, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, and the Hague Academy of International Law. The Library is open to all scholars and students of international law.

The Dutch Carnegie Foundation was created in 1903. It managed a financial donation by Andrew Carnegie, which made the construction of the Peace Palace possible. The Palace was completed in 1913, just before the outbreak of the First World War. Now the Carnegie Foundation is subsidized by the Dutch Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Since 1913 the Foundation has remained the owner of the Palace, and it still runs the Peace Palace Library. The Peace Palace is located at Carnegieplein, The Hague, Netherlands. The Palace was built to accommodate the Permanent Court of Arbitration, but Carnegie insisted that room be made available also for a legal library. The Peace Palace Library resided in the Palace itself until 2007, when it moved to the new Academy and Library Building in the rear of the Peace Palace.

The Peace Palace Library has collected publications since 1913, and now offers over a million titles. A large part is searchable through the Library’s online catalogue, which classifies also book items. In its classification the Library tries to remain faithful, as much as possible, to the Catalogue de la bibliothèque du Palais de la paix, designed in 1916 by Elsa Oppenheim, daughter of the international lawyer Jacques Oppenheim. The Library also uses a modern classification system with around 4,500 keywords.

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